Page 155 of Carousel

The moment I think it, the air shakes.

Maybe splitting the sky is possible.

Maybe it’s exactly what I should do.

But just as I start gathering my magic to me, I hear the voice again, in the back of my mind.

“Ara. Say something, if you are here. I cannot see you.”

I open my eyes. The power drops out from me with the sound of sucking air.

“Drake?”

I see it. A shadow walking through the smoke. I can make out his outline. Short hair, broad shoulders, strong physique. Could count the assured steps he takes towards me. I can’t see a single detail of his face, yet I could fill it in perfectly if asked to describe it.

It’s maddening.

The smoke eases as he nears and I see him properly. His features are just as I knew they would be. His smooth skin, flush against his structured face. His jaw, all edges. His classically Rhavnan deep-set eyes. They’re not black. They’re just the darkest, fieriest shade of brown I’ve ever known.

He stops right in front of me.

“Good,” he says softly, peering down at me. “It worked.”

“You’re real,” I state, dumbfounded.

He looks around. The strangest look twists his face. Like he wants to smirk, but instead, he frowns. “Is this your mind, Ara? What an unexpectedly dark place you live in.”

Anger surges through me again. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t see me like this.

“Get out!” I yell. My words echo around the open space. When I hear my own voice coming back to me, I shiver. It sounds nothing like me.

He hasn’t flinched. “Why are you on the ground?”

“Please, Drake,” I say, teeth tight. “I don’t know how, or why, you’re here. But I need you to leave.”

“Let me help you up,” he says, holding his hand out to me.

“No,” I bite back.

But he doesn’t retract it. I stare at his sturdy fingers hovering in the space between us. The smoke around me is thinning.

I get up by myself.

“You’re in my head,” I state, dusting myself off.

“Yes,” he says, his hand back by his side.

I nod, understanding something. “Good. That means I can remove you from here myself.”

I close my eyes. Imagine him as something I could pluck out from me, like a splinter.

I pull.

But he holds fast.

“Ara. Stop,” he says – low, like a warning.

And I know why it’s not working. He’s not a splinter. He’s more like something already in my veins.