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Okay. Focus. Breath hisses out through my nostrils as I close my eyes and then move in a slow circle. Magic-heavy air thickens and spins around me. The room is filled with different strands, spells, and scents, a chaotic jumble of magic, some fresh and raw and some older than the stones beneath our feet. But there is something different—
My eyes snap open. I’m staring at what appears to be a dark stone wall. No doors, no ornamentation or design. Magic pulses through the wall like the heartbeat of some massive, living creature.
“Here,” I whisper.
I sense more than see Phaedron moving toward me. Now that I’ve spotted it, the magic almost screams, a dizzying pulse crying out for my touch. I raise my fingers and trace the stones. Tiny orange sparks follow the path of my fingers, illuminating designs etched into the wall. I can’t read the figures, but I don’t have to. Magic tugs on my fingertips, and the designs unravel like a lover’s knot when you pull on just the right cord.
Stones slide back, stacking themselves into the shadows, revealing a dark, narrow hallway. Magic dances in the air beyond, deep burgundy and emerald threaded with a streak of low, pulsing crimson like the last light from a dying star.
It’s only when I hear the click of stones behind me that I realize I’ve entered the hallway. I turn to see Phaedron behind me, a tiny flame cupped in his palm, the wall already reassembling itself behind us. The air is as thick as honey in here; magic coats my throat as I breathe.
“After you,” Phaedron whispers, gesturing with his light toward the darkness before me.
I nod, and magic tugs me onward. I don’t think I could stop now, not even if I wanted to. I worked with the magicians of the Kingdom of the Summer for most of my life; together, we built magical weapons whose power terrified and awed me. I worked with dragons and dwarves, with scholars and madmen. Within the walls of King Grathgore’s towers, I thought I’d seen all the magic this world had to offer.
But, this? I never even dreamt of magic like this, magic that seems to call to me, that pulls me from the very inside of my bones. It’s almost as if this magic is alive, like it has a mind and a soul, like it’s hungry.
There’s another door, one made of wood, and then I find a door made of metal. Their magic falls apart at my touch, as though all I have to do is wish for the doors to open and they fall to their side, yielding and compliant. Once we pass the metal door, Phaedron rests his hand on my arm. Only then do I realize he’s keeping me from running.
“Careful,” he whispers.
I raise my eyes. Magic burns a bright path before us, twisting like a nest of snakes. We’ve been following a tunnel upward, climbing higher and higher in a long spiral. Moonlight seeps through open windows far above us, leaving pools of light on the floor that pulsate weirdly in the magic-laced air.
The room we’re standing in is wide open. My breath catches, and a glimmer of fear whispers soft and low through the magical haze wrapping my brain. A moment later Phaedron tugs me back into the shadows of the tunnel we’ve been following.
Sounds. The clip-clip-clip of feet echoes through the stillness, sending tremors through the magical energy warping the air. Something tightens low in my gut, but it takes my mind a moment to recognize the ache of frustrated desire. I want to be moving. I want to follow this magic’s call, to reach the source of energy so powerful I feel like I could use it to fly.
Phaedron’s hand tightens around my arm, and then he presses me against the wall, the warmth of his body burning against the cold stone at my back. Magic spins around us like sparks rising from a fire, like stars swirling in the sky. I look up and find his eyes.
“—heard nothing yet,” a man’s voice says from somewhere.
My body tenses, my breath frozen in my lungs. The clip-clip-clip of boots on stone is much closer now, so close I feel like it might as well be my own feet. There’s a snort, then a grunt.
“Give it time,” another voice answers. “It’s still not the—”
The words fade. Magic twists and churns in my gut, that restless drive pulling me forward, even as my body turns cold. I let my head ease back against the stone before turning to the side, toward that massive room filled with cold moonlight.
Two figures are crossing the room, making the magic twist and dance as they cast long shadows on the stones. Stars, if Phaedron hadn’t caught me, I would have run right past them in my rush to follow this trail of magic. My heart climbs up my throat and into my mouth as every part of my body trembles. I close my eyes, as if that could shut out the tug of magic swirling around me, and listen to the soft rasp of Phaedron’s breath.
Phaedron. He’s my anchor. For a heartbeat, I imagine myself as a burning illusion, light and color and magic held together by sheer force of will. Phaedron is the only thing keeping me from exploding, from bursting apart like a firework.
“Okay,” Phaedron whispers.
I open my eyes. Magic pulses behind Phaedron’s head, casting strange ripples of light over his pale features, as if both of us were far beneath the waves of the ocean. Our eyes meet, and I almost lift my hand to trace the contours of his cheek, just to be sure he’s real, but then he turns away and the moment is broken.
Magic sings to me in looping ropes of light and color flickering and fading, pulsing and pulling. We move quietly across the open room, my hand nestled in Phaedron’s palm. There’s another door on the far side, one locked with magic and steel, but the tumblers yield to my touch and the door swings inward on silent hinges.
Slender torches burn in the hallway ahead of us. The ceiling is vast, so high it’s lost in shadows. Pools of golden torchlight shimmer across the strange floor, casting an illumination so weak it feels like the darkness is trying to drown it. The floor beneath us is thick and soft like carpet, while the rest of the tower has been cold stone. Phaedron frowns as the door closes behind us, then bends down to run his hands over the floor.
“It’s grass,” he whispers.
Grass? I shake my head. There are no windows in this hallway; the floor is hard and cold beneath the crinkle of what has to be carpet. But when I bend down, my fingers sink into something soft and yielding, something unmistakably alive. Magic pulses through every impossible blade of grass.
I come to my feet, my arms trembling, magic burning my throat and stinging my eyes. Phaedron moves forward, and I follow, passing from one pool of light to another. The grass begins to crunch beneath our feet.
“It’s dead,” Phaedron whispers. “The grass. It’s all dead here.”
A shiver traces its way up the back of my neck. There’s something else in the air now, something cold and dark that runs through the pulsing trail of magic like a black thread. Dead grass crunches like ashes under my feet as we follow the lamplight forward, rounding a sharp corner.
