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“Sabra—” I start warily.
“Just wait and see!” Sabra repeats, her eyes glowing with excitement.
I reach back and grab hold of Layden’s shirt. “What the hell are we waiting to see?”
The ground rumbles even more, and beyond the circle, I see Vlad and several of my uncles pour out of the compound. Sabra starts laughing with delight.
“What the fuck, Sab?” I say, my hands gripping onto Layden’s torso. His arms wrap around my waist, holding me tight as blinding white light leaps upward from the ground where his runes were placed.
And then, just like that, it all disappears. The circles stop spinning, and the light dissipates in the blink of an eye, the ground returning to normal as if it wasn’t just shaking underneath our feet like an earthquake.
Sabra starts jumping up and down. “Did you see that?”
“We all saw that, Sabra,” I say furiously, letting go of Layden and trying to step up to her as she dances around the circle. Only problem is, Layden hasn’t let me go. His arms are still firmly locked around my waist.
“Are you all right?” he whispers in my ear.
I turn around in his arms, my belly flipping over at how near his face is to mine. How near his lips are and the concern in his eyes by the time I’m facing him.
“Y-y-yes,” I stutter out. “You can let me go now.”
Reluctantly, his eyes search mine for another long moment, and then his arms slide away from around my waist. I struggle not to reach for him the moment I lose contact. But then I remember I’m pissed at Sabra and spin on her where she stands, still looking absolutely delighted with herself.
“What the hell, Sab?”
“Oh, it was marvelous, did you see?”
“Yeah, Sabra, I saw. And so did Vlad and everyone else in the compound. It felt like you were about to blast us to kingdom come. What was that?”
“He’s supercharged,” she says, eyes so bright. “His runes finetuned my arcane symbols to breach the in-between. We’ll be able to discover and make contact with so many new realms together; I can feel it!”
“Are you high?” I grab her and shake her a little.
She seems to come back down to earth, but not much, the grin still stretching her face so wide. “I’m not going to let you ruin this for me, Phoenix,” she says fiercely. “Not this time.”
I let go of her and step back. “What does that mean? What even was this? I thought we were trying to fix Layden’s curse.”
“We were!” She seems a little more grounded as she looks back at me.
“Then what happened?”
“We made contact with the other side!” She can’t help herself. She starts bouncing up and down again. “Real contact!”
“The other side?” Layden asks.
Sabra waves a hand. “One of the other sides, anyway. Your runes are powerful.”
“Wait,” Layden says. “Are you saying you made contact with where I—” He breaks off. “With where the person who cursed me came from? And what does contact mean?”
“Contact means access. And access means powerful magic.”
“How?” I ask, frustrated with how vague she’s being.
“It’s hard to explain to a non-mage.” She shakes her head.
“Try,” I demand, glowering at her. “Considering you’re using my blood to power your engine and his runes as navigation.”
Sabra just barrels ahead. “And once we get there, we can gaze into what’s on the other plane. Even dip into their resources and gain special knowledge.” She smiles at Layden. “Like how to break your curse.”
