I keep chanting. The words flow faster now, building momentum. My magic pours into the circle, feeding thespell, anchoring it to this realm. I can feel it working. The veil is thinning. Something is listening.
The temperature drops sharply. My breath mists in the air. The candle flames turn blue.
I raise my voice. The chant becomes a shout, the words ringing through the flat with a force that rattles the windows. My magic is a roar now, a flood, pouring everything I have into the circle.
The runes on the floor begin to glow. Faint at first, then brighter, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. The smoke swirls into shapes that might be hands or might be something worse.
This is it. This is working.
I throw the final word into the spell with everything I have left. The magic surges, peaks, crashes through the circle like a wave breaking against rocks.
The candles go out.
All at once. Every single flame snuffed in an instant.
The flat plunges into darkness.
I stand in the centre of the circle, breathing hard, my magic still crackling under my skin. The air is so cold I can barely feel my fingers. The smoke hangs thick and motionless.
I wait.
Nothing happens.
I keep waiting. My heart is hammering in my chest. My hands are clenched into fists at my sides.
Still nothing.
Slowly, the temperature begins to rise. The smoke starts to dissipate. The wrongness in the air fades like a dream on waking.
No.
No, no, no.
I drop to my knees and press my hands against the floorboards. The runes are still there, perfectly drawn. The components are all in place. Everything was exactly right.
But the circle is empty.
It didn’t work.
Reality hits me like a physical blow. All those months of research. All that preparation. All that hope and rage and desperate need.
Nothing.
I sit back on my heels and stare at the empty circle. My throat feels tight. My eyes are burning in a way that has nothing to do with the smoke.
Of course it didn’t work. What was I thinking? I’m not powerful enough for this. I’ve never been powerful enough. I was told I was weak, pathetic, not worth the effort it took to teach me. And apparently they were right.
I push myself to my feet. My legs feel shaky. Weak. Everything feels weak.
The flat is still dark. I don’t bother turning on the lights. I just walk to the kitchen on autopilot, my feet finding the path through muscle memory.
I fill the kettle. Put it on. Pull a mug from the cupboard. Tea. I’ll make tea. That’s what you do when everything falls apart, isn’t it? You make tea and you pretend it helps.
The kettle boils. I pour the water over the tea bag and watch it steep, the colour bleeding out into the water like all my plans bleeding out into nothing.
I pick up the mug and walk to the window. Bristol spreads out below me, lights and streets and ordinary lives happening everywhere. People who aren’t standing alone in the dark feeling the weight of their failure.
I take a sip. The tea is too hot and burns my tongue. Perfect. Just perfect.
