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“Then let’s get rid of that magic.”
I follow him in silence, trying to swallow my anger and questions so I can get through the night. The next nine days.
When we reach the water, he turns to me. “This requires a lot of magic. It’s an intermediate spell that I don’t expect you to be able to perform. But trying something this intense will require a steady rush of magic, and we’ll work at it until you’re safe again.”
“Thank you.”
He nods once and turns back to the sprawling sea. “Kneel down. It will help you form a stronger connection to the water.”
I sink down into the sand and put my hands in the ocean. Wolfe kneels beside me and does the same.
“I want you to concentrate on the feel of the water. Its temperature, its viscosity, its grittiness. Breathe it into your lungs and taste it on your lips. This water is in you—find it and bind it to the water around you.”
It’s an extension of what we did earlier with the wind, what I do every day in the perfumery. It should be easy, connecting the place I feel most at peace to the magic inside me, but the ocean is so vast. It’s so powerful.
“I can feel it inside me, but I don’t know how to tie it to the sea.”
“Imagine that your body is totally permeable. The water isn’t going around you; it’s moving through you. It isn’t outside of you, it’s in you. Speak your intentions out loud and invite it in.”
I never speak when practicing magic; the new order is softer and doesn’t require the power of words. I suddenly feel self-conscious, and I sit up. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s like a prayer,” he says, and something about the way he speaks the words forces my insides to shift around, as if making space for them. “You can say it aloud or think the words to yourself. It’s up to you. But you need to ask the sea to rush into you and seek out your magic.”
“What’s it supposed to feel like?”
“When you feel it, you’ll know.” He watches me, and even though I’m kneeling in cold water, heat spreads through me.
I start again. “Please seek out my magic,” I say. “Please help me.”
I keep my eyes tightly closed, my hands tense in the water, but nothing happens. I don’t feel magic pouring through me; all I feel is a creeping dread that this isn’t going to work, that it is foolish to even try.
“It has to be genuine, Mortana,” Wolfe says beside me. “You have to approach it like it’s something you want, not something you need.”
“But I don’t want it.”
I open my eyes, and he’s suddenly so close to me, his thigh almost touching my own as we kneel in the water. “For just one night, give in to it.” His words are quiet, but my entire body responds as if he’d shouted them at me.
Give in to it.
I gently place my hands back in the water, turning my gaze away from Wolfe before closing my eyes. I take a deep breath of briny air and hold it in my lungs for several seconds. Then I speak.
“Ocean around me, ocean within, touch one to the other, let the magic begin.” I don’t know where the words come from, but they feel natural as they pour from my lips, and I chant them over and over again.
And as I do, the magic inside me wakes.
I’m flooded with relief as magic releases into the space around me, giving the cold night air an energetic buzz, making the water around us stir.
Everything is coming alive.
I am coming alive.
My words get louder and louder, and soon my whole body is filled with power, the way I feel right before the rush.
“Gentle tide, waters low, rise to us now, send us below.” The words fall from my lips of their own accord, and soon my magic follows, flowing out of me with a power I’ve never known. It’s exhilarating and terrifying and confusing, but I keep saying the words because it feels as if something inside me will break if I stop. My body is shaking, and I’m unsure if it’s due to fear or the magic roaring through me.
I am being rewritten, the water around me and the magic inside me carving new paths until the map of who I am looks different.
“Mortana!” Wolfe shouts, grabbing my arm.
