Chapter 47 #2
“Max,” I whispered. Our connection was faint, nowhere near as strong as it used to be.
We needed more practice—years more practice to do S’s spell—but I pushed the doubt away.
There was no room for doubt. No room for a lack of concentration because losing concentration when you’re holding this much water means I really would plummet to the bottom.
It may not have been literal water that I would sink into, but it was clear as day in S’s warning.
If I lost my concentration during his spell, I would be lost to this world—lost somewhere in the Magic.
My head bobbed above water, my limbs tiring when gentle drops of rain fell on my head, warming me to my core.
Max.
No matter where I was, he always found me. In that shadow-space of Magic, he brought the light streaming in, a single beam of sunlight bursting through gray storm clouds.
I’m here.
Down came the walls between us, and without them, he was exposed and vulnerable. I held onto a timid hesitation, too. But below that, an eagerness, a hunger.
I’d missed this.
Together, our Magic tangled up in each other, strong, pulsing with electricity. “Let’s try to funnel Magic toward the telescope,” I said. “Just enough to test.”
Dani’s telescope wasn’t radiating Magic.
It felt cold and lifeless. But it hadn’t always been that way.
Just days ago, I’d heard the steady beat of its pulse, the notes swirling around it like some twisting melody only it could play.
It had Magic still in its veins. It just needed to be reminded of that fact. Reminded of what it had once had.
“A thread,” Max agreed faintly.
Together, we reached a hesitant thread out to it. I concentrated on pushing the cord toward the telescope, threading it like a string through a needle. It was hard work, and the cord of power shook and vibrated as the power weighed on our limbs, drawing our strength.
“Cel,” Max said beside me, voice strained.
“Just a second longer. You can do this.”
The telescope still felt cold, but the closer the cord got to it, the more I sensed something. A flicker of life in there, still. It might accept the power, if we could just hold the thread for a second longer. Push just a little farther—
But the cord of power bobbed up and down violently now, and the ocean below me was sucking up into a whirlpool, as if going down a giant drain.
“I can’t,” Max groaned, and with one long last thrum, like a finger on a guitar string, the thread of Magic fell to the ground and dissipated.
I opened my eyes.
“We’ve got to hold it longer than that.”
Max was on the ground, sweat pouring down his forehead. “I don’t know if I can. How are you able to hold it?”
Suddenly, I felt a tick of anger replace the cold chill of the Magic. How were we going to save Dani if he refused to help? I could hold it just fine—it shouldn’t have been any more difficult for him.
But, of course, I already knew the answer. It was because, in his heart, Max still was afraid of Dani. He still believed that she was a cold-blooded murderer.
“That’s why we’re practicing. Please, we have to try again,” I begged. “We’re so close.”
“Okay.” He got up off the ground and wiped the sweat off his brow with the lip of his shirt. “If you think we can do it without killing ourselves.”
“I know we can. Just trust me.” I reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.
He looked up at me, his eyes a liquid, brilliant blue. “Of course I do.”
My heart fluttered at the touch. Doing Magic like this brought on the craziest runner’s high.
Suddenly, I was aware of how close we were, of the way his shirt stretched across his chest, his hair falling in his eyes.
The way his stare warmed and steadied me.
I became very conscious of my own body. Of how badly I wanted to reach for him, pull his lips to me, feel his body crushed against mine.
“Marcella …” His voice was strained, a husky growl. He ran his tongue over his lips. “We need to … focus.”
But his hands weren’t obeying because they were already running up my thighs. And we were already so close. Our chests practically touched. The only thing that separated us were our objects bumping up against our knees.
I closed my eyes and again plunged into the water.
This time, I was in a room in a dark house.
Water spilled from a drainpipe in the corner.
The place seemed familiar somehow—it was somewhere I’d been before, only different.
The walls were dark, and though there was a window in the corner, no light came in.
As I spun back around, I noticed the water was already up to my knees.
It filled the room quickly, pressing me back against the wall.
“Okay,” I breathed. With my leather cord, I could make a plug for the pipe to stop the water.
Again, I could hear the gallop of horses, felt a warm spring rain on my shoulders. Sun streamed through the windows. Satisfied the water had stopped, I nodded. “One thread to the telescope.”
“Wait,” Max said suddenly, and I blinked lazily, still halfway in the Magic. “How are you doing that?”
“I’m just concentrating,” I answered.
“No I mean, how are you doing that? You’re not touching your leather cord. How are you conjuring leather?”
I looked down. He was right. I wasn’t touching any of my objects. “Oh, I—I don’t know.” Memories flooded through me, of another time I’d cast something without the use of my objects. Dr. Perez yanking me aside, the smoke from the fire still choking my throat.
“How did you do that?”
“What are you talking about?” I cried, too dazed to focus on anything except the rage, except all the feelings swirling around like a chasm that I couldn’t control.
I looked at my reflection in a car window and barely recognized myself, my hair a vicious tangle around me.
Dark ink blotted out my irises like a stain.
“The fire, Cella,” Perez said, his eyes wide, and … frightened. “How the hell are you conjuring fire?”
Now, in the field with Max, I shook my head, embarrassed. Quickly, I put a hand on the leather cord. “Let’s just keep going.” I looked out at the horizon. “We’re running out of time.”
Max eyed me warily for a moment, then nodded.
I closed my eyes, back once again in that strange house. In my mind’s eye, I imagined the telescope in the room across from me.
“Got it,” Max said.
Gently, we eased the Magic to the telescope. Water dripped from the pipe. “It’s working,” I said. “Keep going.”
The cord of power circled the base of the telescope, creating a gentle spiral that wrapped around it, waiting to be let in.
But the stopper I’d weaved around the pipe went shooting out. Water rushed out faster than ever. In seconds, it was at my waist. Then my chest.
Tendrils of power reached out to the telescope, ready to pierce through. I held my breath as the water rose past my head and steadily inched toward the ceiling.
It was then I realized that I had been in this house before.
This was where Dani had been in my nightmares. In all my visions with her, she was always here.
A flicker of movement happened in the next room. A strand of blond hair next to the telescope.
“Dani?” I whispered, though the water went streaming into my throat.
This was it. She was here.
“Push, Max!”
The water plunged down my throat, stars burst in my eyes, but there she was. A hand, running a slender finger down the telescope, the Magic encircling it like a viper.
“Cella,” came a choked warning, though it was far away. Too far away and—
I was submerged in darkness.
I could feel Dani here. Even if I couldn’t see the pale strands of hair or the shadow over the floorboards, I knew it, felt it in that same inexplicable draw I had to her ever since I first saw her in Maritza’s cottage.
And somewhere, in the haze inside my mind, I realized I wasn’t drawn to her because she reminded me of my brother, or because she was lost and needed my help.
I was drawn to her because she reminded me of … me.
The same thread of Magic that had its grip around her tightened its coils around me.
As if something had been knocked loose, memories flashed through me more quickly than I could keep up.
In my mind’s eye, a weak, hollow-eyed Cella standing in the bathroom. Bear, barking at me to wake up, to snap out of it. And my eyes, unfocused, running over the 1’s all over the shower door. The 1’s that my fingers were still tracing over the door.
In another—black paint stained my hands as I fled flashlights scouring the dry campus grounds, sending a panicked glance back at my work on the skulls without truly seeing. Without realizing what I’d done at all.
And memories of a voice that sounded like Basile’s, but wasn’t. A soft smile, an outstretched hand. “Join us.”
I opened my eyes, gasping for breath.
Max was on his back. He stared at the sky, breathing hard. “Jesus, do you have a death wish?!” He slammed upright. “When we’re tied together, we feel the same things. And I like breathing.”
But I could barely hear him.
FIVE YEARS AGO
Jamie had found me in the library again and asked if I wanted to tag along to one of their lectures.
“What do you even see in those guys?” Max asked.
“They’re nice.” But it was more than that.
They were … different than most people on campus.
They took walks together every morning; they practiced group meditation on Tuesdays and ate a (vegetarian) lunch together most days of the week.
They valued silence over saying the first thing that came to mind.
They were some of the most thoughtful, disciplined group of people I’d ever met.
“They’re philosophical. Sort of like an academic club.
They prize their minds more than anything.
It’s refreshing. Really, you should come to a meeting.
Get to know them. Aaron introduced me. He says they’re pretty cool. ”
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough Elon Musk fanboys to last me a lifetime.”