Chapter 55 Taera
Taera
“You got me a job,” I blurt as soon as Nikolai steps through the door. I’d planned to wait, but I have to say something, and it’s better than you kissed me and now my brain doesn’t work.
He blinks at me, surprised. “Omi did. I just asked.”
My brow furrows. “Why are you helping me?”
“I can’t have my girlfriend selling magic on the black market.” He chuckles. “You getting your freckled ass in trouble reflects poorly on me.”
I try to ignore the prickle up my neck at the word girlfriend, but my blush wins out. “Thanks.”
He shrugs, moving to his desk. “You’re the one who actually has to do the work.”
Nikolai seems completely unfazed by having kissed me mere hours ago. So I resolve to be the same. I just have to ignore the camel in the room.
“I didn’t know the Halls had healers,” I say.
“You don’t know a lot of things about illusionists.” His tone is mild, but the words sting a little. He nudges aside a stack of parchment, sorting out what looks to be shards of mirror. Something about them is eerily compelling, making me lean closer.
“Are you ready?” he asks, and the full intensity of his emerald gaze falls on me.
“Ready for what?” I try not to stammer—or remember how the curve of those lips felt against mine. I have to stop thinking about his stupid lips or the softness of his golden hair.
“Magic,” he says, flashing a smile that does terrible things to my insides. “Come here.”
I keep my shoulders back and head up as I oblige, like a rational, unaffected person, definitely not overthinking the way he watches me.
“These are talismans,” Nikolai says, gesturing to the six shards of mirror laid out on the desk. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me use them.”
“What do they do?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs.
I swallow, shifting between my feet. That doesn’t inspire confidence. “How do I use them?”
“It should be intuitive. You just have to provide a steady current of magic.”
“I don’t know if I…” I watch the pieces of mirror, which seem to reflect flickers of light that don’t exist. “Couldn’t you use my magic to fill amulets instead?”
“This is more important.” He looks at me. “And you’re the only source who can do this. It’s why I had to wait for your magic to fully replenish.”
Pride bubbles in me, along with an inexplicable desire to please Nikolai. I exhale, looking down at the shards of mirrors.
“All you have to do is touch one,” he instructs.
“Okay.” My fingers quiver as I reach out and touch one of the pieces.
I’m hurled away by a force field. Thrown backward, I stagger to catch my footing, and Nikolai steadies me. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it was shocking to the extreme. I cradle my ticklish hand.
“What was that?” I ask, wide-eyed.
Nikolai frowns. “You need to calm your magic, for it to flow evenly.”
“Calm my magic?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Calming yourself should help,” says the magician who kissed me this morning.
I squawk out a laugh. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Breathing, meditation, sex, whatever works for you.”
I choke on nothing, coughing until my eyes water.
“Let’s sit,” he says, gesturing to the bed and taking a cross-legged seat atop it.
I almost snort. How in the desert is being on his bed supposed to calm me down? After he just mentioned sex as an option.
But I join him, mimicking his posture. Even though he’s an arm’s length away, my entire body is completely aware of where he is, physically, in relation to me. I squeeze my eyes shut to match his.
“Think of something that calms you,” Nikolai says.
I skim through recent weeks. Panic, humiliation, near-death, magical chaos. It makes me want to laugh. So I think back to my family, which elicits a twinge of sadness. Even thinking of the apothecary makes my chest clench with longing.
“May I take your hand?” Nikolai asks.
My eyes spring open. “Why?”
“To see if it’s working.”
My heart pounds. Don’t be giddy. Don’t be excited by his touch. Do not be aroused.
I extend my hand to Nikolai’s.
Don’t enjoy this. Remember I hate him.
My skin tingles as my fingers rest on his, and he chuckles.
“What?” I pull away, glaring at him.
He’s smiling. “You’re bad at this.”
“How am I supposed to be calm when I’m here in your—” I flush. “In the Halls of Glass.”
“Should we talk about it?” he asks with a grin.
“What?” I mutter, my eyes flitting away. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
I’m such a desert-damned liar.
“I kissed you,” he says evenly.
“We do not need to talk about that.” My voice is strangled.
“Because if it would help you sort out your—”
“No.”
“Alright.” His eyes twinkle, then he offers a hand. “Try again?”
I’m annoyed enough that it feels safe to oblige, and when my magic prickles against him he gives another low laugh.
“Think of something sad,” he says.
“Why?” I frown.
“Each emotional state affects your magic differently.”
Exhaling slowly, I try. I imagine Ezran, all alone and trying to comfort Gramps through the pain. My chest seizes.
“Now think of something that scares you,” Nikolai continues.
I remember the hard wooden chair, Lee in front of me and the cold glass cuff digging into my neck.
“Think of something beautiful. Something bittersweet.”
The image of my magician’s face, unbidden, floats to the front of my mind. The quiet, painful beauty of looking at him. Of knowing what he is.
“That should work,” he murmurs.
My eyes leap open. “What?”
“Use that image,” he says, completely serious.
My eyes narrow. “Can you read my mind?”
“No,” he says. “Just the colors of your emotions.”
Wonderful.
I glare at him for several more moments, making sure he’s not teasing me. I do not want to think about Nikolai’s face to do magic.
“Are you ready?” Nikolai is on his feet, returning to the bed with one of the slivers of mirror, which he places on the black sheets in front of me. I remember how it blasted me away and my stomach squeezes tight.
“Keep that same image in your mind,” he instructs, watching me.
I refuse to think about Nikolai, let alone how beautiful he is. I can be calm without thinking about him.
I clench my teeth, staring avidly at the shard of mirror and not the green-eyed magician who’s rather close to my side. I don’t need his help.
I am calm.
I am serene.
I am a desert breeze.
I grab the shard and it explodes. The blinding screech, like a bird of prey, scrapes the insides of my ears. I’m hurled—not backward, but to the side—by Nikolai. Flung flat onto the bed, my face squashed against his chest. He hisses harshly on impact.
“Wha—” My voice is muffled by the hard line of his ribs. Recovering from the shock, I thrash beneath him until he peels himself off me. His eyes are ink-dark, his mouth pressed into a tight line, and he shudders.
“How…” A trail of red trickles down the side of his neck, and my throat closes.
Stiffly, he stands upright. Behind him dozens of blades of glass are strewn across the bed as well as the floor. Nothing else remains of the shard of mirror.
“Oh desert.” My breath leaves me in a rush. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I stare for longer than I should before leaping to my feet—avoiding the glass—to examine his back. His robes are shredded with a dozen red slits, dark with blood.
“It’s real, so they need to be removed.” Nikolai’s voice is tight.
“Right,” I say quickly, my instincts from the apothecary kicking in. I assess the damage, and my mind goes quiet and calm at the sight of all the blood, at what needs to be done. I would be an excellent healer; I have the stomach for it. I experience a faint, inappropriate moment of satisfaction.
The majority of the shards hit his back, where he shielded me.
“I need to remove your robes,” I say, not even blinking.
Nikolai grunts, and before I can think of a way to painlessly peel away the blue fabric, it disappears.
He’s left wearing black pants that hang low on his hips, giving me full access to the expanse of his back.
Rivulets of blood run down his skin like tears, and I breathe in sharply.
Slices of mirror jut out at terrible angles, glittering like embedded knives.
I exhale slowly, not touching him. Every single fragment needs to be carefully removed.
“You need a real healer,” I breathe.
“No one can know,” he mutters. “Can you do this or not?”
I hesitate, then nod—even though he can’t see me. “Yes.”
“Take them out,” he hisses.
I’m careful not to cut myself as I attempt to remove the first piece.
The glass is slick with blood. I wince as I pull.
Nikolai exhales sharply but doesn’t jerk away.
I remove the next piece. And the next. Each shard comes free with a soft wet sound, and I collect a bloody pile of glass next to me on the floor.
Several minutes later, the last one is out.
“In my bathing chambers, under the second sink, there’s a balm,” he says. “In a green jar. There are also clean rags.”
I fetch the supplies, also filling a basin of warm water. I thought the jars under the sink were for cleaning, not… something like this.
Methodically, I wash the blood from his back, from the neck down. Red clouds the water. I apply the sticky green paste as I go. It smells sharp and herbal, but I don’t recognize the salve. I hope Nikolai knows what he’s doing.
When at last I drop the reddened rag into the water, Nikolai gingerly turns around. But instead of pain in his eyes, it’s anger.
“You should go, Taera,” he says, voice tightly controlled. “You can return later.”
My chest twists. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s not that,” he bites out. “You destroyed something invaluable.”
I step back, shocked. “You’re the one who wanted me to touch it.”
“You have no control over your emotions or your magic.”
“You’re supposed to teach me!” My anger wins out, even with my guilt weighing like the red in the basin on the floor.
“You want to control your magic? Read the textbook I gave you.” Hostility is thick on his tongue.
I gape at him. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to give me? How am I supposed to make it through exams?”
“At this rate, you won’t.”
“You said you would help me.” I fight back tears. “I did everything you said.”
“Out.” His expression is cold. “Give me two hours before you come back. Before I do something I’ll regret.”
“I even kissed you.” I bite my trembling lip, shaking my head as I retreat toward the door.
“You wanted to kiss me, Taera.” He laughs, then sneers. “You’re a terrible liar.”
My vision blurs, and I spin around, leaving without even washing the blood from my hands.
* * *
The Halls must know I feel small and pathetic, because I find a rounded alcove in the side of a corridor to curl up in. A perfect little hollow for failures.
This evening could not have gone any worse.
Anguish prickles my insides; my magic couldn’t do what Nikolai wanted.
Guilt joins the mix as I wonder whether things would have turned out differently if I had just swallowed my pride and thought about Nikolai’s stupid, beautiful face.
But he knows I’m untrained. It makes me want to scream.
Heaving out a long exhale, I set those thoughts aside. Nikolai told me he would train me for exams, and I’m going to hold him to that. Even if I have to do all the work myself… or if I have to figure out how to work those cursed shards of mirror.
When night darkens the Halls, I return to his chambers.
Nikolai sits on the bed, still not wearing a shirt, with his torn-up back to me.
The angry red wounds cross his shoulder blades in jagged stripes.
The floor has been swept clean—no shards, no blood.
No evidence. He hasn’t so much as looked at me.
I cross the floor to my mat and pick up my basic blue textbook, the only one that Nikolai has given me. I flip to the exercises at the end of chapter two, the spine of the book opening easily to the well-worn page. Then, I make myself go through each pose—each sequence of breaths—one by one.
When I finish the list, I start on chapter three.