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Ignatius doesn’t say anything as he mixes ingredients in the chalice. A pinch of this, a dash of that. He’s moving so fast, I can’t keep up with everything he’s adding. I watch silently as he tops the concoction off with a glittering blue liquid and swirls the cup around a few times before pushing it back across the table to me.
“Drink up.”
I blanch, my eyes dropping to the chalice before slowly climbing their way back up to his vibrant gaze.
“You want me to drink my own blood?” I ask, my stomach turning.
He nods. “There’s so little you won’t even notice. We just needed enough of your magic to jumpstart the spell. Pretend it’s juice or something.”
I scrunch my nose. Drinking blood wasn’t part of the deal, but at least it’s my blood.
At least he didn’t slice open his own hand.
I reach for the chalice, fingers trembling, and pull it toward me. It’s heavy, a solid chunk of metal that’s cool to the touch, and I feel a little relief when I look inside and don’t find crimson liquid. It’s still blue and shimmering, swirling slowly in the cup. There’s a faint minty smell wafting from it.
Just like mouthwash.I shudder. Probably not the best thing to chug.Peppermint schnapps?
I count down from five before knocking the drink back and swallowing, grimacing at the sharp taste of mint across my tongue. There’s a bitter aftertaste I’d rather not think about, and I swallow a few more times trying to get rid of it. I shove the chalice back across the coffee table triumphantly, hesitant but also ready for more instructions.
Ignatius doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just watches, waiting for something to happen.
Was that it?
A nasty drink, and suddenly I’m supposed to be a powerful magic-wielder?
I guess it could be worse, but I don’t feel any different. Aside from the gross aftertaste, I don’t feel anything at all.
Maybe it didn’t work.
I open my mouth to say something, but before any sound escapes, it feels like every neuron in my body explodes simultaneously.
Pain. It’s the only thing I register as it feels like my blood is set on fire. It sears through my veins, burning me alive from the inside. I clench my teeth, but a pained growl still escapes as I try to fight it.
“Ignatius,” I cry, desperate for him to make it stop. I need something, anything, to alleviate the white-hot whip lancing through me.
“Focus, Devyn,” he says from a million miles away.
The room disappears, leaving me tumbling through an endless black void, with nothing but my unintelligible whimpers and the pain to remind me that I’m still alive.
“On what?” I gasp, my mind spiraling into an indecipherable mess.
I try to focus on anything else, but I can’t. The pain is all-consuming.
“Make it stop,” I plead. Or maybe I think to myself. I can’t control my lips anymore as the pain intensifies, making me feel like my bones are shattering apart.
Tears well in my eyes, but I don’t feel them slide down my cheeks. At some point I must have fallen over, because I manage to grab onto fibers of the shag rug, my fingers tangling in them.
“Focus on fighting the pain,” his voice reminds me calmly. “Your magic will make it stop, Devyn. You just have to call on it.”
Now I know he’s fucking crazy and this is all a horrible idea. How can I possibly call on something that I didn’t even know existed? Does it have a name I can yell out and summon? Do I pst-pst it like a cat?
I don’t know, but as I exhale shakily and suck in another sharp breath, I try to summon whatever mystical fucking essence is in my body to make this pain stop.
If it doesn’t stop, I just know I’m going to die. Death by torture, not exactly how I’d planned for it to happen.
If I want to make it out of this and help my mates on the battlefield, if I want to be useful at all, I have to figure this out. I have to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do this. Otherwise, they might as well lock me up at the condo again.
I take a deep breath, focusing on filling my lungs to maximum capacity before exhaling, and I try to separate myself from the pain. I picture it as a separate entity, pressing down on me, attacking me, but not inside me. Something dark, menacing, and clawing to tear me apart.
