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He pulled out what looked to be one of those plastic pods small kids’ toys often came in.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Said energy containment—we don’t need that much for the spell to work.” He paused. “If it works, that is. I’ve never tried anything like this before.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“For the moment, nothing.”
He handed me a garland of assorted herbs, placed a similar one around his neck, and then began raising the protection circle. The rhythm of his magic flowed around me, a powerful force that burned across my skin in a very different way to the heretic’s energy. I narrowed my eyes, watching the way he constructed the protective layers, fascinated with how he wove the various deterrents and inhibitors through each thread to make every level that much stronger. It oddly felt like I was back at school, watching my spell master at work, trying to remember everything I was seeing, everything he was doing. Both Belle and I had been in the system long enough to learn the basics, and we’d certainly honed our skills in the years since we’d left Canberra, but watching Eli construct this protective circle made me realize just how far we still had to go.
The air shimmered briefly as he tied off the spell and then activated it.
“Okay, now I just need you to touch my hands, and we’ll get the gathering spell underway.”
He held his hands out, palms up. After I lightly placed mine on his, he uttered another incantation—yet another spell that was unfamiliar to me. Magic once again stirred around me, a force that briefly touched the outer level of my aura, making a bridge between my energy output and his at the point where our hands touched. The wild magic immediately ran down my arms and flowed around our joined hands, a brief swirl of power that glimmered brightly in the darkness of the room.
He sucked in a deep breath. “Fuck, that’s strong.”
My gaze jumped to his. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and licked his lips. “The wild magic itself is not flowing into me; it’s simply meshing with my energy at our connection point.”
“In the same way as our auras are connected?”
He nodded. “Which in itself suggests the wild magic is very much a part of your DNA, though how that can be possible I have no idea.”
“That’s not possible, and we both know it.” I might have drawn the wild magic into me to fight a vampire and survived the experience with little more than silver-ringed eyes, but it hadn’t lingered. Hadn’t become a part of me—of that, I was sure. “Will its presence affect your ability to spell?”
“No. I can feel its force but it’s not impacting me.”
“Which is no different to how it’s affecting me.” I could see the disbelief in his eyes, but he didn’t give it voice. “Can you also feel the dark witch’s energy?”
&n
bsp; He nodded. “The spell shouldn’t take too long, but I’ll need you to ensure the connection between us doesn’t break.”
“That, I can do.”
He nodded and then took a deep breath, centering his energy before he began the spell. Again, his magic stirred around me but this time, I concentrated on keeping our connection, on the bright flow of energy that was once again encircled across our hands, and the thin slivers of darkness that were being pulled from it. Then the plastic pod rose from the floor and hovered several inches above our hands. The thin filaments of darkness twisted and heaved, as if fighting the commands being placed on them. They were nevertheless forced together until they were little more than a small sphere of churning evil, and then thrust into one half of the pod. The other half snapped closed over it, and the threads of Eli’s magic wove around it, quickly sealing it.
As the pod dropped into his lap, he tied the ends of the spell around it and then severed the connection between us. As the wild magic retreated up my arm, he took a deep breath and pulled his fingers from mine. His aura was dark with weariness and his eyes bloodshot.
“Damn, that took more out of me than I thought.”
Because of the wild magic, I suspected. “But it was at least successful.”
He nodded, pulled a silk glove out of his backpack, and then carefully picked up the pod. The dark filaments locked inside roiled and heaved, still fighting the magic that now contained them.
“Will it be hard to create a spell using that energy?” I asked.
He shook his head. “While the energy in this room will probably fade within the next twelve hours—unless, of course, he comes back—this compacted mass should last for another twenty-four to forty-eight beyond that.”
“Which at least gives you some recovery time before you have to activate the next part of the spell.”
He nodded again and then took another deep breath before deactivating his protection circle. He wrapped the pod in a silk bag, placed it carefully into his pack, and pushed to his feet. I rose with him, one hand lightly cupping his elbow to steady him.
His smile flashed, but its wattage was far below what it should have been. Once he’d gathered his spell stones, we headed out.
