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I pressed my hand to the pipe right by the wall, curling my fingers around the heated metal. The hum rose alongside my pulse between my ears. My throat constricted. I closed my eyes and aimed all my attention at my sense of the pipe on the other side of the wall, the cracks or gaps that might have opened up to let loose that flow of water, and the need to solder them shut any way I could.
A matching heat flared all through my body, sharpest in my forearm around the mark. With a jolt of a power I didn’t understand, it flowed from my fingers into the pipe. My heart stuttered.
Behind my eyelids, a ruddy light burst around a vague image of curving lines and joints. Even as I lost my breath, the certainty that I’d madesomethinghappen gripped me.
“Damon?” Mom said hesitantly. Her voice seeped through the dwindling rush of sensations. I blinked and stared at the pipe I was clutching. As far as I could make out, it looked exactly the same as before.
“Just… giving something else a try,” I said, only a little shakily. I steadied myself before clambering back out. My hand balked for an instant, but I convinced myself to test the tap again.
It shouldn’t work. I hadn’t really done anything. There was no reason…
The hot water hissed up to the faucet. I peered under the sink. The seconds slipped by with the ticking of the clock over the counter, and not a single drip slicked along the metal surface.
A laugh sputtered out of me. Ihaddone it, somehow or other. I’d fixed the damned pipe by sheer strength of will.
My gaze dropped to my arm, seeing the ragged splotch of the scar in my mind’s eye even though it was hidden under the cuff.
No, it hadn’t been just will. Some sort of power had come to me through that mark—a power I’d been able to control.Magic.
Kyler was wrong. There were ways guys like us could face off against Rose’s witching society without needing all kinds of doctored tools.
The burning of the scar had faded completely. Not a twinge or a single violent impulse ran through me when I swiveled my arm at the elbow. Interesting. A surer smile crept across my face.
I’d been able to get control over the thing after all. Rose’s dad had no clue what he was talking about. I’d refused to follow the mark’s urging, and I’d transformed whatever energy it contained into a force I could use for whatIwanted.
A thread of uneasiness wove through me beneath my elation. Whatever the power was, it was connected to the demon that’d wounded me.
So what? I’d shown it who was in charge. If I could use magic to right a few wrongs in the world, why the hell shouldn’t I? I couldn’t imagine even Ky with all his plans and precautions would argue with that.
“All better,” I said to Mom, turning my smile her way. “I told you that you could count on me.”
Chapter Six
Seth
Most weeks, there was nothing better than the lazy Saturday mornings when I didn’t have to worry about next week’s college assignments just yet and there was no need to go anywhere beyond the walls of Hallowell Manor. I could cut myself enough slack to linger in bed for a little while before going down to check out the cook’s breakfast offerings. If the bed I’d ended up in was Rose’s, I could even have the joy of starting her morning as well as my own in a very enjoyable way.
That particular Saturday, I woke up in my bed in the room down the hall. Jin and I had stayed up late in the sitting room talking about what he’d called “the intersection between art and architecture,” and I hadn’t wanted to disturb my consort. I stretched out on the firm mattress, absorbing the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the broad window, but it didn’t bring its usual mellow comfort. A restless twitch ran through my chest.
Since lolling around in bed didn’t feel appealing, I got up, dressed, and headed downstairs to see if filling my stomach would settle my nerves. Ky’s voice filtered faintly through the door of the bedroom next to mine—my twin was chatting with one of his online friends, I guessed. Probably someone on the other side of the world where this was a more sociable hour.
Gabriel must have gotten up even earlier than me. When I came down the stairs, he was just going back out the front door, a croissant in his hand. At the rasp of my feet, he glanced up with a brief smile and a tip of his head to me before he ducked outside.
He still lived in the apartment over the garage where he’d grown up back when his dad had overseen all the maintenance on the estate’s fleet of cars. It meant he had more space to himself, but also that he was slightly farther from Rose. I was okay with my side of that bargain.
The savory smell of fried bacon drifted from the dining room. My stomach gurgled, but it tightened at the same time. As I strode down the mansion’s narrow hallway, I picked up my pace in the hopes that I’d find some company while I ate—and that talking to other human beings would shake off the weird mood that had come over me.
I was halfway there when the walls collapsed in on me.
They weren’t actually the walls I’d been walking past. I registered that even as a startled gasp broke from my mouth and my arms jerked up defensively. The gold-patterned wallpaper blurred into bright pine boards; an unfinished frame was crashing down all around me, splintered wooden edges clattering violently together with a smack as one of them hit human flesh. A thud and a pained grunt filled my ears. I caught a glimpse of a figure slumping, a flash of scarlet blood. My heart nearly lurched up my throat.Dad!
Then the scene fell away. I was standing in the first-floor hallway again, one hand braced against the wall that was definitely still upright and unbroken. The breakfast smells seeped back into my awareness, chasing away the tang of raw sawdust.
No one had crumpled in front of me. There was no one around at all—except Rose, slipping out from the dining room now in her silky dressing gown.
She frowned when she saw me. I pushed myself off the wall, straightening my posture, but alarm still jangled all through my body. I doubted she needed any magic to pick up on my fading distress.
“Good morning,” she said cautiously. “At least, I hope it’s good.”
