“The power corrupts,” Michael said. “We don’t reject it. We give it back.”
“And what do you have to show for that decision?” Alex asked. “A few years of magic until you’re normal again. Ordinary.”
“Healthy,” Michael said. “Helpers. Not parasites on the world.”
Jeremiah barked out a mirthless laugh. “How naïve, all of you.” He aimed his gaze at me. “I would hope, Ms. Parker, that you might spend some time thinking critically about your friends and whatever lies they told you. They are a boil on the face of magic. They imagine themselves to be saviors, rebels, a mutiny against tyranny. They are wrong. They create strife, division, amongst us when we need solidarity.”
“Solidarity to take lives?” I wondered aloud. “To take the strength of others?”
Jeremiah clucked his tongue. “It’s a pity that you’ve succumbed to their backward belief that the magic they’ve been given is inherently evil. That it is inherently bad. Those are ideas for the small-minded, for the ignorant, who do not understand or appreciate the gifts.”
“Those gifts degrade,” Jamie pointed out. “They rot you from the inside.”
“So you’ve been taught,” Jeremiah said, taking a step toward us. “But what if you’re wrong?”
“Wrong?” Scout asked hoarsely. “How could they be wrong?”
“You steal other peoples’ essences,” Michael said, pointing at Scout, “from people like her, in order to survive. Does that sound right to you?”
“What is right, Mr. Garcia? Is it right that you would be given powers of such magnitude—or in your case, knowledge of such magnitude—for such a short period of time? Between the ages of, what, fifteen and twenty-five? Does it seem natural to you that such power is intended to be temporary, or does that seem like a construct of shortsighted minds?”
I glanced over at Scout, who frowned as if working through the logic and wondering the same thing.
“We agree to give up their powers,” Jamie pointed out, “before they become a risk. A liability. Before we have to take from others.”
“A very interesting conclusion, Ms. Riley, but with a flawed center. Why should you protect humans who are not strong enough to take care of themselves? What advantage is there in stepping forward to protect those who are so obviously weak? Whose egos vastly outpace their abilities? Those who are gifted with magic are elite amongst humans.”
As if bored with the conversation, he waved a hand in the air. “Enough of this prattle. Are you willing to see the error of your ways? To come back to the fold? To leave behind those who would rip you from your true family?”
Reaper or cult leader? I wondered. It was hard to tell the difference with this one.
“Are you high?” Michael asked.
Jeremiah’s nostrils flared. “I’ll take that as a juvenile ‘no,’ ” he said, then turned on his heel. “Ad meloria. Finish them.”
21
“Aw, this is my favorite part,” said Alex, then outstretched her hands.
But before she could shake the earth, Jamie wound up her left hand as if bracing for a pitch. “Keep your issues,” she said, then slung her arm forward, “to yourself.” A wave of heat blew past us as pellets of white fire shot from Jamie’s hand like sparks from a sparkler.
“Holy frick,” I muttered, instinctively covering my head even though the fire wasn’t meant for me. But it was enough to temporarily subdue Alex, who drew back her hand and hit the ground, wrapping her arms around her head to avoid the burn.
“Help me off this thing,” Scout muttered, grasping my arm. I pulled her to her feet as Michael glanced around at the movement.
“Green,” he yelled over the crackle of falling sparks, “get behind the table!”
“Garcia,” Scout said, fingers biting into my hand as she kept herself upright, “I’m the spellbinder here. You get your ass behind the table.”
“They’re reloading,” Jamie said, turning to grab my arm. She pulled me behind the table, and I dragged Scout with me. “Let’s all get behind the table.”
We’d just managed to hit the deck when the pressure in the room changed. I knew what was coming, deep in my bones. I clapped my hands to my ears against the sudden ache, as if my blood and bones remembered it, feared it.
The air in the room vibrated, contracted, and expanded, and the light seemed to shift to apple green, the table suddenly flying above our heads with Sebastian’s burst of firespell. I covered Scout’s body with mine and we were both saved the impact, but the move stripped us of our cover. We were all but naked, nothing but air between us and two Reapers who appeared to be better equipped for the battle than we were.
“I’m on it,” Jamie yelled, turning from her crouch, fingers outstretched in front of her, her irises shifting to waves of flame again. There was another crackle of sound and energy as a wall of white fire began to rise between us and the Reapers. I kneeled up to sneak a glance and saw Sebastian on the other side, black brows arched over hooded blue eyes. He stared at me, his gaze intense, one arm outstretched, his chest heaving with the exertion of the firespell he’d thrown, lips just parted.
I don’t know why—maybe because of the intensity in his eyes, in his expression—but I got goose bumps again, at least until the growing barrier of flame blocked my view. I guessed it was a foot thick, nearly six feet tall, and it crossed the room from one side to the other, a blockade between us and the Reapers.
For a moment, as if entranced, I stared at the wall of white fire, the heat of the dancing flames warming my cheeks. “Amazing,” I murmured, turning to gaze in awe at Jamie.
“More amazing if it could withstand that earthquake business,” she said as the ground rumbled beneath us. “I braided the strands of flame together. It’s hard to penetrate, at least at first, but it won’t hold forever. Flame acts like a fluid. It flows, sinks. The strands will separate.”
“Scout,” Michael called, “can you do anything? Reinforce the wall?”
She squeezed my hand, closed her eyes, and was quiet for a moment. And then she began to chant.
“Fire and flame/in union bound/from parts, a whole/ from top to ground.” Her body suddenly spasmed; then she went limp. I glanced behind us at the wall. It shivered, seemed to ripple with magic, then stilled again.