My frown deepens and my voice drops. “Mara, I asked you a question.”
She pulls away from me and turns around to face me. She searches my face for a moment, her brow pulling tight.
“You are too angry for me to answer,” she says.
“I’m about to get a whole lot more angry if you don’t start talking.”
She frowns at me. “You’re the one who needs to start talking, Aaron.”
I close my eyes. I try to calm down but the memory of losing her keeps flashing. The way the life drained out of her eyes. I just cannot take it. Every time I reach for calm, it crashes through again, and I feel myself losing control.
“Will you please talk to me?” Mara’s voice cuts through.
I open my eyes.
She gasps. Then she takes a step back, her ears and tail going alert, her whole body pulling away from me as she takes in the sight of whatever I’ve become.
“Aaron, your eyes...”
“I don’t feel any different,” I say, and my voice comes out numb.
The magic is sparking at my fingertips. I didn’t even know it was happening. I look down at my hands and the blue light is pulsing through my veins, crawling up my forearms, and when I catch my reflection through a glass on the counter, my stomach drops. My eyes are blue. Not my dark brown—a deep, electric, pulsing blue I’ve never seen before—and the glow is spreading, climbing my neck, my chest, bleeding through my shirt until my whole body is casting blue.
“I think my magic is just as afraid as I am.” I turn my hands over, watching the light pulse brighter every time my heartbeat kicks. “Maybe that’s why it took me to the future. It wanted to make sure I saw what happened.”
“Aaron, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice pitches with concern. “What did you see?”
I start walking toward her.
She hisses. Low and sharp, a warning for me to get back. Her ears flatten against her head and her tail lifts behind her, puffed.
I don’t stop.
She hisses again, louder, baring her teeth. I grin at her. Some sick, broken part of me is enjoying this. The fear rising in her, the way her body is coiling for flight.
Good. Feel it.
Because the fear I feel from losing her is far, far worse.
She puts a hand to my chest when I get close enough, her claws pressing through my shirt, and then she bolts. She spins away from me and takes off toward the front door, her feet light and fast across the floor. Her hand wraps around the doorknob.
Blue magic suddenly covers the door. It spreads from the hinges to the frame to the knob, sealing it shut. She pulls. Nothing moves.
Mara looks back at me, hissing again. Her tail is alert, the tassel vibrating.
I take slow steps toward her.
“Aaron, what is wrong with you? What are you doing?”
“I watched the life drain from your eyes.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine—too calm, too steady, like something else is speaking through me. “I watched you die on the grass in front of the Glen and all I could think about was dying with you.”
She pulls at the door. Her claws dig into the wood and she yanks, but the magic holds. I’m closer now; close enough to see the pulse hammering in her neck. She hisses, baring her teeth, and her tail whips around in a swift arc aimed at my face.
I catch it. My fingers close around the tassel and hold.
She snatches it back with a snarl and takes off running toward the window, her hands slamming against the glass. She pulls at the latch, bangs her palms against it when it won’t give.
“Help!” she screams. “Help! Someone help me!”
