Confused, Rose blinked rapidly. “Uh … say what, now?”
“It’s a trick that works best at night; you can pull the shadows of the dark to you, to hide, to walk undetected. The shadows also cloak any noise you make.”
“Seriously?”
Fionn nodded. “It’s a fae talent that was passed onto vampires too. Concentrate on the shadows. Reach out to them with your mind and imagine pulling them over you like a hooded cloak.”
Rose closed her eyes and saw the shadows in her mind’s eye. She did as Fionn instructed and imagined tugging shadows toward her. Tingles prickled all over her skin at the telltale sign of magic.
“Concentrate, Rose.”
She nodded and focused on the magic, turned that magic into hands and reached out into the carriage to gather the shadows. She pulled on them and felt something physically give way.
“What the …” She stumbled back.
“Keep going,” Fionn ordered.
Rose centered herself and repeated the process. This time when she felt the shadows peeling away from their natural positions in the carriage, she kept going. She kept going until she felt them surround her like a cloak.
They felt like dark ghosts on her skin; it wasn’t the most pleasant feeling.
Opening her eyes, she saw Fionn through a veil of black.
“Well done.”
With a tilt of her head, she let go of her hold on the shadows and they crawled away from her, back to where they’d come from.
Fionn nodded, something like satisfaction on his face. “You’re a quick learner.”
She smiled. “That was creepy, but cool.”
His mouth twitched. “Everything is cool to you.”
“False. There are many things, including modern slave labor, that are very uncool to me. Magic … magic is fucking cool.”
“Magic is dangerous. It isn’t a gift. It’s a burden.”
She frowned in response to his clipped admonition and intimidating glower. “If you want to see it that way, go ahead. But I’m going to embrace ‘the cool.’” She rubbed her hands together in gleeful anticipation. Discovering her abilities was just the distraction she needed from the scarier parts of her new life. “What’s next?”
12
Telekinesis was next. Fionn first taught her a kind of self-meditation for her to begin to “become one” with her magic by fusing the magic with the wants and desires of her mind and body. If he wanted to pick up a knife that was too far from his reach, magic became his hands.
This took a little longer than the shadow business. But according to Fionn, Rose still grasped the ability with amazing speed. It had taken him weeks to master his abilities as fae, but by the end of two hours of training, Rose moved Fionn’s cell phone up off a table and sent it to him without dropping it or throwing it against a window.
It was pretty bashed up by that point.
“Maybe we should’ve used something a little less expensive,” she’d suggested as Fionn led her back to their carriage.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Rose decided not to. If the man could afford $3,000 suits, suites in five-star hotels, and first-class travel tickets, she assumed he could afford to replace his cell.
They’d gotten back to their seat just as a waitress came around with an evening snack. Rose took the sandwich with enthusiasm. She felt like she’d just spent hours practicing a floor routine.
Fionn watched her wolf down the food and pushed his sandwich toward her. “It takes a lot out of you at first.”
She’d waved off his offer even though she could’ve eaten his too. “A big guy like you needs to eat.”
He’d given her his hard-won lip quirk. “I’ll survive. Eat, Rose.”
Grinning at him in thanks, she took the sandwich and decimated it in seconds. Not long later, the train pulled into Milano Centrale. According to Fionn, their next train wasn’t for another hour.
Despite her night-shift body clock, the lack of sleep and the miniature training session on the train had worn her out. Unfortunately, there was no time for napping until they were on the train to Barcelona.
As she followed Fionn to the main atrium of the grand railway station, she felt his impatience and his hyperawareness. He moved as he had done that night in the club, like an animal hunting prey. He took in everything around them.
An understanding had fallen between her and Fionn. She finally understood his mission. It was a noble one, and Rose found herself looking for approval beyond herself. Even as a gymnast, it had never been about making her parents or her coach proud. It was about striving to be the best because she desired to be the best.
Sure, she’d wanted her parents to be proud of her, to approve, but it had never stopped her going her own way.
Yet Fionn inspired this longing in her.
She wanted this warrior to respect her, admire her even, like she was growing to respect and admire him.
He’d protected her, and he’d done it with an incredible show of power.
He was teaching her said power with a patience that surprised and gratified her. And although the power was terrible and great, harnessing it excited the hell out of Rose.
“Bran said the O’Connors would become a problem when we stopped moving.” Rose broke the silence. “Should it concern me we’re stuck at this station for an hour?”
“Yes.” Fionn glanced down at her. “I require all my strength in the event we meet an enemy here and to do that, I need to make a choice. I stop casting the spell of illusion on myself, thus making us more visible but freeing up more of my power, or I continue the illusion and take the chance that if an enemy finds us, you can help me best them.”
A warm ache flared to life in Rose. “You’d trust me to help … so soon?”
“Can I?”
She thought of how long it had taken her to control moving Fionn’s cell with her powers. Putting her into battle might be premature, but what choice did she have? These people were coming for her and by the sounds of it, they wouldn’t stop coming.
Whether she learned to fight today or tomorrow, it made no difference.
A kaleidoscope of butterflies awoke in her stomach at the thought of battling her new enemies. Despite her fears, Rose tilted her chin. “You can trust that I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.”
“Even so …”
She felt a hum in the air and glanced around in time to catch a woman falter as she strode by them, her attention focused on Fionn. She frowned at her mentor, realizing he’d dropped the illusion on himself. “You don’t trust me?”
“I do. But I also vowed to protect you and I’ll need all my strength to do that.” He walked toward a coffee cart. “Speaking of which.”
She hurried to catch up with him, watching as humans took a wide berth around his massive presence. “You said I can do that, right?” Rose asked as she stopped beside him in line for coffee.
“Do what?”
“The illusion thing?”
Some emotion she couldn’t identify worked behind his eyes. “Yes. You can learn.”
“You call it a spell. Does that make you a warlock too?”
He grinned, quick, teasing, and over way too soon. “No. We’re made of magic. We have natural powers. ‘Casting a spell’ is just a phrase for us. It doesn’t mean what it does for witches and warlocks. Casting a spell for them means drawing from Earth’s energy. We call it magic for want of a better word. And magic comes with a price for them. They need balance.”
“How so?”
Fionn looked toward the line and Rose looked up to see the woman they were behind glancing over her shoulder at them with an expression that said she thought they might be crazy.
“Let me get coffee first. You need one too. You’re lagging.”
Rose frowned. “Do I look tired?”
“No. I can …” He scowled, trailing off into silence.