I set the stack of papers I’d been gathering down on the desk. “I don’t understand dark magic. I only know that it’s bad. My father told me it ruined the lives of all supernaturals during the Great War.”
“It did,” Tiana says. “But right now we don’t have time for a history lesson.”
I pick up the eraser again and turn back to the board, wiping at a stubborn mark. “I don’t understand, Tiana. If dark magic is such a bad thing, why not just get rid of it?”
“It’s not that simple.”
I raise an eyebrow over my shoulder. “Oh, really? I know about the Blackwoods. You’re supposed to be even more powerful than King Amir.”
Tiana smirks, and I can smell the pride blooming in her scent. Sharp, rich, pleased with itself. I find it annoying.
“We are,” she says.
Her gaze drifts to the jug of water sitting on the corner of my desk. I follow it.
“I think you need a visual aid,” she says.
Tiana lifts her hand, fingers spread, and blue-gold light pulses at her fingertips. The water inside the jug shudders, then rises in a smooth column through the opening, climbing into the air. It pulls free of the glass and hangs suspended between us, reshaping itself until it forms a perfect sphere the size of my fist, rotating slowly.
I forget what I was doing. The eraser hangs limp in my hand and my lips part as I watch the sphere hover and turn.
“You think ‘good’ magic is just healing and sunshine, Mara?” Tiana circles the sphere slowly, her fingers conducting the light that holds it. “A world with only good magic is a stagnant pond. Beautiful to look at, but nothing under the surface is moving. Nothing is breaking down, and nothing new is growing because there’s nothing feeding the soil.” She stops circling and meets my eyes. “You need the rot, Mara. Without it, the pond just sits there and chokes on itself.”
I frown. “That’s a strange way to defend dark magic.”
“I’m not defending it. I’m telling you what it is.” She points at the sphere. “Look at this. You need water to live, right?”
“My father told me when I was young that I would always need it,” I answer.
“But drink too much and you don’t become more alive.” Tiana’s finger traces a line down the side of the sphere and the water inside begins to shift. At first it’s subtle, a tiny flickerof light deep in the center, like a spark catching. The sparks multiply, threading through the water in bright veins, and the surface starts to ripple and churn. “Your cells swell. Your brain shuts down. You die.”
I move closer. Inside the sphere, a storm is building. Miniature clouds form, swirling and folding over each other, and tiny bolts of white light fracture through the churning water. A whole tempest trapped in the palm of her hand.
“Good is only good in doses the world can handle,” she explains, watching the storm rage inside the sphere. “Dark magic is the drain that keeps the world from drowning in its own light.”
“So you can’t just get rid of it,” I wonder.
“You can’t have good magic without the bad. It’s not the magic itself that makes dark magic dangerous.” Tiana’s voice drops, and the playfulness is gone. “It’s the people who gain access to it. Bad people make dark magic worse. The magic is just... balance. Take it away, and everything that’s left becomes too concentrated.”
She flicks her wrist.
The sphere shatters. The water breaks into a thousand tiny particles that scatter across the room, each one glowing with a faint blue-gold luminescence. They drift through the air like fireflies. They float over the desks, across the board I just cleaned, and settle into the corners of the room like stars falling in slow motion.
My hand moves to my belly.
Tiana notices. I pull it away and tuck it behind my back. Tiana frowns at that but doesn’t say anything about it.
“Something is going on with the Glen,” she says, watching the last of the glowing particles dissolve into the air. “And I think Eric is using Aaron because of it.”
I look away from the fading light. “Yes. I agree.”
Tiana frowns. “I need to go there. Confront my asshole of a sperm donor.” The word comes out flat, like she’s said it enough times that it doesn’t cut anymore. “He doesn’t come to me and my sisters, and I think I know why. We accepted Jacob as our father. Eric may be our true father, but his rejection of us changed me. I understood it, and I moved on.” She pauses, and her gaze turns inward. “My brother hasn’t.”
She starts pacing again, slower this time, her cloak dragging across the floor.
“There’s still a longing in him for a father’s love. Jacob tried. He really did. But after Seth was born, things changed. The longing came back.” Her voice catches. “I think my brother envies Seth and Jacob’s bond. Me and my sisters, we all know we’ll never have the same thing with Jacob that Seth has. We’ve made peace with it. Aaron hasn’t.”
My face falls. The nesting warmth in my belly turns cold for a moment, and I think about Aaron this morning. The tremble in his hands, how he pulled away from me like gentleness was something he couldn’t afford.
