Chapter 15 #2
“You make a bunch of small ones. Each one ends at the same destination point. Then you bring them together, layer by layer, until they fuse into a single stable portal. The text says the old Ophis guides used this method to open routes between the home worlds. Across light-years.”
I studied the diagram. The logic of it was sound, in theory. A single large portal required an enormous amount of power to maintain over interstellar distances. But a hundred small ones, each one drawing only a fraction of the power. The load was distributed, then consolidated.
“How many would you need to get far enough?” I asked.
“The text suggests a minimum of a hundred for planetary distances. More for interstellar.” She looked up at me, and her silver eyes were bright with that feverish intensity I’d come to recognize and crave if I was being honest with myself. “I want to try it. Today. Right now.”
“Jupiter, I don’t know.”
“I’ve been practicing the small ones for years, Percy, you know that. And after training here, I can finally hold ten, fifteen at a time without breaking a sweat. The theory is solid, I’m sure of it. I just need to scale it up and figure out how much energy to use without burning myself out.”
“And if it goes wrong?”
“It won’t.”
“Famous last words.”
She glared at me, and for a second the old Jupiter was there. I saw the stubborn, impossible woman who’d walked into Dominion and turned my entire life inside out. Then the wall came back up, and her expression went careful again, and the ache in my chest deepened.
“It won’t go wrong,” she said again. “But I’ll need someone to stabilize me. If the portals start to collapse inward instead of fusing, they could knock me unconscious.”
I stared at her. She was asking me. Not Rowan, not Lucas, not Phoenix. Me. After everything. After the accusations, the betrayal, the months of silence. She was asking me to be the one to catch her if she fell. I couldn’t breathe for a second.
“Okay,” I said roughly, then cleared my throat. “Tell me what you need.”
Her eyes held mine, and something flickered through the bond—something warm and yet uncertain and painfully fragile. Then she looked back at the tome.
“I’ll open them one at a time. I need you to anchor me when I start combining them. Your magic will act as a counterbalance to mine. When I pull them together, they’re going to push back. Hard. I need you to hold the line so they don’t collapse.”
I nodded. “Where do you want me?”
“Behind me. Close.”
Close. The word had my cock twitching as I mentally cursed myself for being such a jackass.
I moved around behind her, settling onto my knees at her back.
The distance between us was maybe six inches.
I could feel the heat of her body through the space between us, could smell the pear and honey of her hair, and my hands clenched at my sides.
She took a breath. Then another. I watched the line of her shoulders straighten, watched her hands settle palms-up on her knees.
The first portal opened in front of her, a tiny circle of silver light, no bigger than a coin, hovering at chest height.
It shimmered, becoming stable, and she held it there for a count of three before opening a second one beside it.
Then a third. A fourth. They appeared in sequence, each one identical, each one ending at the same point in space.
It was a fixed destination she’d apparently already decided on, somewhere I couldn’t even guess.
Five. Ten. Fifteen. The air in the archive grew heavy. The small portals hummed in unison, a low harmonic that vibrated through the stone floor and into my knees. Twenty. Twenty-five. She was breathing steadily, her chest rising and falling in a steady, healthy rhythm.
Thirty. Thirty-five. Forty. The portals filled the air in front of her now, a constellation of silver coins arranged in a loose spiral.
The light they cast was bright enough to read by, throwing shadows across the walls of the archive.
Noodle had lifted his head from his new perch over on a table against the wall, his pale eyes tracking the portals with wary interest.
Fifty. The harmonic had deepened, the vibration now a physical sensation in my teeth, in the bones of my skull. Jupiter’s hands were trembling slightly. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out along her hairline.
Sixty. Seventy. The strain was visible now, her jaw clenched, a muscle feathering in her cheek, the tendons in her neck standing out. The bond hummed with effort, with concentration so intense it felt like a fist was squeezing my brain.
Eighty. Eighty-five. Ninety.
“Percy—” Her voice was tight, controlled, but I heard the panic in it too. “Get ready.”
I placed my hands on her shoulders. The contact sent a bolt of electricity through my arms, through my chest, straight to the base of my spine.
She was warm under my palms, the fabric of her shirt thin enough that I could feel the heat of her skin beneath it.
I felt her flinch, just barely, a fractional tensing of muscles before she relaxed into it, and the trust that took nearly broke me.
My magic rose to the surface, pouring down my arms and into my hands. I channeled it carefully, not into her, not through her, but around her. A shell of stabilizing energy.
Ninety-five. Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.
One hundred.
The archive went white. A hundred silver portals blazed simultaneously, the harmonic climbing to a frequency that made my bones ache. Jupiter’s whole body was shaking now, trembling under my hands like a wire carrying too much current.