Page 52 of Hybrid Heroics

We had all grown entirely too much to not be actively working on control.

I could feel the influx of power coursing through me, especially when I hadn’t used any magic in hours or days. At some point, I had stopped thinking about intent or what I wanted the magic to do.

I just did it.

How?

I couldn’t say... though I had seen Sloane do it more times than I could count. She only snapped her fingers when she was overwhelmed or for show.

I didn’t have to do that anymore. And I had only just realized it when I put that soundproof dome up. The magic started with the arch of my hand, but I’d only followed through with the motion because it felt natural. The magic was already in place before I stopped moving.

In the grand scheme of things, that didn’t sound like a big deal... And to a few dark mages, it wasn’t. Miller could do some magic like that, but not all.

I was pretty sure I could do all my magic without thinking now...

The only way to know was to test it, though.

I walked out onto the front porch of Talia and Latharian’s home, reveling in the four seconds of silence I got. Briggs was right behind me, his hands in his pockets as his boots thudded with his steps.

We sat in the patio chairs, staring at each other for a moment, before he smirked.

“Go ahead,” he urged. “I see the gears whirling around in your brain. I was waiting for the smoke to come, but since it hasn’t, I’m assuming you haven’t worked out all your thoughts.”

“Not even half of them,” I admitted. “But I’m stuck on training.”

“Training for what?”

“When we met Sloane, she had a training regiment. It was something she and Jack did, but we got busy, and so did he. She hasn’t trained…”

He frowned. “Neither have we.”

“But we should be training.”

“Again, training for what?”

I scoffed. “Alric.”

“I highly doubt we’ll be fighting him.”

“You’re daft if you think he’s coming alone,” I pointed out.

Briggs rolled his eyes. “I know he won’t come alone, but whoever comes with him won’t be as powerful as he is... Or Sloane. And we fight with her all the time.”

“With her,” I agreed. “Not against her.”

“So you’re saying—”

“We need to train,” I repeated.

“How?” he inquired.

I ruffled my hair, giving his question thought. “When’s the last time you shifted? Like really stretching your wolf to his limits?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then pursed his lips as he sunk back into the chair. “I don’t know. I remember shifting, but not searching for any limits. I’m a wolf, Palmer. There’s not much growing to be done.”

That might be true, but…

“Novak is a vampire, yet he still set the table on fire in Hell. And Stone is a demon, yet he still made a leaf grow on an apple—”