Her eyes lift. Gold threaded with wild light. Frightened. I shift my grip,not restraining now, but anchoring. My thumbs press gently into the pulse points at her wrists.
“Breathe.”
She mirrors it without realizing. Her magic doesn’t extinguish. It settles. The storm recedes into tremors, then into heat beneath her skin, then into something almost manageable.
When the last spark fades from the air, silence crashes down around us. Her eyes widen.
“You should have moved,” she whispers.
I release her slowly.
“And let it hit someone else?” I ask evenly.
She pulls her hands back like they’ve betrayed her. “I attacked you.”
“You lost control.”
“That’s worse.”
She steps away from me like distance might protect me from her. The bond strains instantly. I hate that it does.
“Stop,” I say sharply.
She freezes.
“I am not injured,” I continue. “Nothing is broken. Nothing is lost.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Her jaw tightens.
“You could have been hurt.”
“I wasn’t.”
“That’s not the point!”
Her voice cracks. The magic under her skin flutters again, not violently this time, just unsteady. She is afraid of harming me. I step closer deliberately, slowly enough that she could retreat if she wanted.
“Look at me,” I say.
She does.
“When you lost control,” I ask quietly, “what were you feeling?”
Her expression shutters.
“That’s not?—”
“What were you feeling, Amelia?”
“Everything.”
It comes out strained.
“My magic feels wrong. Ever since the ritual interruption, it doesn’t move like it used to. It reacts to things I don’t mean for it to react to. I can’t always separate my emotions from it anymore.” She swallows. “And there is so much happening.”
