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Her stare turned flinty. “I don’t know any other mages.”
I threw my hands toward the ceiling and let out a wordless grunt of frustration. “You can’t contact Allamere. You don’t know other mages. What,exactly, can you do?”
Her jaw slackened for a fraction of a second, and then her sharp brows drew together as the air around her snapped with electricity. Blue currents danced across her arms. “I can wipe you off the fucking map.”
“Easy,” Ozias said, pushing between us. He shot me a rare glare. “Kost let his emotions get the better of him. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Forcing out a tight exhale, I turned away. He was right, of course. This wasn’t Isla’s fault. It was mine. I’d failed Gaige. If I’d only noticed the unique bestial behavior of his shadows sooner, we wouldn’t have been here. Instead, I’d indulged in my own self-pity and ignored what he needed most: love. Support. Understanding.And now, when I’d finally figured that out and bared my heart to him, it was too late.
“I apologize for my outburst,” I finally managed as I slowly straightened and met her guarded eyes.
“It’s okay.” She blew out a breath and her anger with it. “I’m willing to help however I can, I just wish I could’ve seen how it worked. Magic manifests differently for all of us.”
Something clicked in the back of my mind, and the world slowed. “Someone else has witnessed it before.” I jerked my chin toward Ozias. “Get Uma. Now.”
He was on the couch in seconds, eyes slipping closed, with his hands clasped over his chest. The formerly quickened pace of his breaths slowed to a steady rise and fall, and then Calem and I watched as his consciousness separated from his body in the form of a shadowy apparition. He nodded once in our direction before disappearing entirely.
“He’s shadow walking, right?” Raven tilted her head as she regarded his immobile form.
“Yes.” Already I was pacing beside him, body itching for his return despite the fact he’d just left. “He’ll be back shortly.”
With her face pinched in curiosity, Isla inched toward him. “Is he in the shadow realm? Can’t he just locate Gaige, then?”
I shook my head. “No. Shadow walking is the act of separating our conscious mind from our physical bodies so we can traverse this world in seconds, so long as we know a rough idea of where we’re going.”
“The shadow realm is like this world, but not.” Calem slumped into the armchair as he studied his brother. “Think of it like an in-between.”
“We can move through that space without affecting our surroundings and remain undetected. When our power wanes, we mustreturn to this reality.” My fingers twitched, and I removed my glasses and began polishing them to try to give my nerves some semblance of an outlet. “Gaige isn’t there, either.”
Isla crouched before Ozias to get a closer look at his face. “I thought you said he was lost to the shadows?”
Raven and Kaori had gone silent, but their rapt gazes were trained on me. My feet slowed until I came to a stop by Ozias’s feet. They needed answers just like me. No, not answers—hope.
“We don’t exactly know what happens to someone when they’re lost to the shadows,” I said quietly. “We don’t have records. The few who’ve tried to search for the lost—in this world and in our parallel realm—have never been successful, either. The lost simply disappear without a trace.”
“Magic always leaves a trace.” Isla chewed on the inside of her cheek. Abandoning her position beside Ozias, she moved to the wall and leaned against it, tipping her head toward the ceiling as if deep in thought. “How long can you stay in the realm, give or take?”
I watched her carefully. “That depends on the person. At the risk of generalizing and greatly oversimplifying, maybe a day or two.”
Calem scoffed. “If you don’t move and use absolutely no power, sure.”
With a wordless hum, she glanced at Kaori and Raven. “It’s relatively similar for the beast realm, too, right?”
“Yes,” Kaori said swiftly. She plucked at a stray thread dangling from the hemline of her sleeve and rolled it between her fingers. “There aren’t many Charmers who can last more than a few hours.”
“That’s because all magic has limits,” Isla murmured.
“What are you getting at?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.” She let out a defeated sigh, but her brow remained creased. “Something just doesn’t feel right, but I’m new to your type of magic. I could just be analyzing it too much.”
Before I could press her more, a plume of shadows erupted in the center of the room. They writhed in indecipherable swirls until they knitted together, and Uma materialized before our eyes. Comprised of thin, sable tendrils, her form was wispy and shifted with even the slightest current, but she was very much present. She tipped her head by way of greeting just as Ozias sucked in a heavy breath and sat up from the couch.
“How can I help?” Uma asked.
All of Isla’s concerns faded to the back of my mind, and I moved to stand before Uma. “Back at Cruor, you mentioned trying to save someone from the shadows.”
“Once,” she hedged. “It didn’t work.”
