Page 36 of Shadow & Storms

Thea shook her head. ‘Sometimes he just needs to decompress. I imagine being here, as much as he loves everyone, is a lot for him to take in.’

‘It’s a lot for everyone to take in,’ Audra admitted before glancing at Thea, her brows knitting together. ‘Something on your mind?’

‘These days? Always.’

Audra simply waited.

‘I was wondering… What happens to a person’s magic when they die?’

Audra pinned her with a sharp stare. ‘Why?’

Untucking her fate stone from her shirt, Thea sighed. ‘You know what this is,’ she said. ‘You always have. You know what’s coming for me.’

‘I have never pretended to know what the Furies have in store for any of us,’ Audra replied tersely.

‘Their names are Iseldra, Morwynn and Valdara,’ Thea heard herself say before she came back to the moment, rubbing her fate stone with her thumb. The numeral it bore was darker than it had ever been before. ‘Does the magic die with its wielder? Or is there a way to… pass it on?’

Audra was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. ‘Pass it on?’

‘I’m just trying to be prepared,’ Thea told her. ‘If there’s a way I can pass it on to Wren and Anya, if I’m not here for… for the end… If there’s a chance I can do that, then I want to. I want to give them every advantage imaginable. I want —’

‘I’ll look into it,’ Audra said.

‘Thank you.’

Audra nodded stiffly. ‘Althea?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Might I make a suggestion?’ When Thea didn’t protest, Audra gripped her shoulder, her long fingers surprisingly strong. ‘Get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day.’

Thea nodded. ‘In a little while. For now, I’d like to catch up with my friend.’ She glanced to Malik and Dax by the fire.

‘Very well.’ Audra took several books in hand and left.

Thea sank into the vacant armchair and turned to her companion with a smile. ‘How are you, my friend?’

Malik’s eyes sparkled, his fingers working on a leather belt.

‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘Glad you have had Talemir and Drue all this time.’

Malik continued braiding.

With a contented sigh, Thea watched the fire for a moment before she turned to the stack of scrolls and volumes Audra had left on the side table. She slid a hefty tome from the top of the pile and glanced at Malik. ‘Should I read to you? That used to be our thing, didn’t it?’

Malik gave a slight dip of his head, but his eyes didn’t focus, and she saw a slight tremor in one of his fingers.

‘Reading it is.’ Thea turned the book over in her hands before she groaned at the title. ‘Tethers and Magical Bonds Throughout History… Furies save us, not exactly what I’d call a scintillating read, Mal.’ She hauled herself out of the armchair. ‘A library full of love stories and that’s what Audra picks? I’ll find us something that won’t bore us to tears.’

Thea soon found a sweeping tale of adventure and read to Malik for the next two hours, until he’d nodded off in the armchair.

When she had stoked the fire and draped a blanket across her giant friend, she murmured her goodnights to him and Dax, and returned to the old headmaster’s chambers. They felt cold without Wilder, and the bed seemed far less appealing without his powerful build taking up the bulk of the space.

Instead, Thea lit all the candles and got a small fire crackling in the hearth. Before the flames, she sat writing.

Wilder, every entry began. And then whatever was in her heart poured onto the page, raw and unfiltered. She wrote to him until the candles burned low – wrote of her fears, her dreams, everything that might offer him some semblance of comfort when she was gone. Instead of her name, she signed off with a small bolt of lightning, the little gesture only they had shared since she’d started training as his apprentice.

‘What are you doing?’ Wilder’s voice sounded as the door clicked closed behind him.

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