Page 65 of The World Undone

But after a quick, “We’ve got this, go teach your boyfriends and girlfriend how to control their new tricks before we have another tragedy on our hands” from Izzy, Max finally relented.

We were all rattled by the loss of Greta.

I didn’t know her on a profound personal level—didn’t know her favorite color or movie—but she’d been a constant presence in my life, a figure of stability from the moment I stepped foot into Headquarters. And I knew she’d been the same for Max too.

It was a blow that would take a while to heal from.

“We’ve been doing this for hours.” Eli stared down at his hand, face bent in concentration as he wiggled his fingers. “Why isn’t it working for me?”

We were on the shoreline, away from the docks and where the cabins were planted—open ground and close enough to the water that we could train with fire without risking taking out The Lodge. Izzy was right—there'd already been enough tragedy and loss today.

Learning that Seamus was a wendigo—or on his way to becoming one—had cracked something in Eli. Whether it gave him renewed purpose or would break him down was yet to be seen.

He’d approached the training session with a rigid focus. And he hadn’t so much as unclenched a single muscle since making sure Seamus was locked up and safe, that Levi understood the express orders to keep an eye on him and make sure no one harmed him.

Every time he tried to conjure the fire, his veins would practically puncture his skin from the tension lining his body.

Max bit back a small grin as she walked over to him. Massaging his hands in hers, she forced him to relax a bit.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t pick it up as quickly as Dec either. When I was learning,” she said, her voice soft, soothing, as she closed her eyes, her chest lifting in slow, deep breaths, “it helped for me to try to visualize it. To feel the flames as if they were stemming from my blood, my skin, my bones. A part of me as much as the rest.”

She cracked an eye open to make sure that Eli had his eyes closed.

He didn’t.

He was watching her intently, like she was the last treasure left in the world, like he was two seconds away from licking her mouth.

Honestly, I didn’t blame him.

His skin blushed slightly and he mumbled a quiet, “Sorry” as he slammed his eyes closed, doubling down on his focus.

Which apparently meant tensing back up again.

Max squeezed his hands, pushed a serene relax, don’t try so hard through the bond and, surprisingly, he did.

“And then,” she said, voice confident but soft, “when I can feel the start of the spark, I chase that warmth, until I can let it free. That’s all it wants. To be free.”

Her hands flared to life around his, the flames strong and powerful, a mesmerizing array of colors as his face cracked into a small smile—the first one I’d seen from him since the day’s events too.

I jumped, the flames in my own hand popping into a soft, wispy smoke, before disappearing altogether.

“Interesting.” Darius was leaning against the tree. While he’d managed to teleport to Max when his emotions were heightened, he’d been struggling to conjure fire or reproduce the shift since our session. “Looked like when Max conjured it, she pulled it from Declan.”

Max frowned, then turned back to me, head tilted in curiosity. She held her hands before her face, the large flames effortless as she studied them. “Do you think you can conjure it again, Dec?”

“Erm, yeah, sure. Let me try.” I licked my lips, then closed my eyes, trying to block out the pressure I felt from being put on the spot. I still wasn’t entirely sure how I’d gotten it to work the first time.

Darius had mentioned that he’d been able to teleport because he was aware he had access to the power. That, combined with the desperate need to get to Max, had allowed him to access the ability. Deliberate intention. Need.

I tried to tap into that knowledge, to fake that sort of emotional desperation. Max was in front of me, we were, relatively speaking, quite safe on the shore here. There was no shade in our presence, and while we were all still recovering from the events of the day, the immediate threats were taken care of.

So that didn’t work.

Instead, I focused on my connection to Max. Felt her inside of me, a part of me. As much me as I was. Tasted her lips. Felt her soft skin.

And through her, I felt the others too. My team.

I’d always had an awareness of them. Before Max, I devoted most of my time and energy to keeping them in line, keeping them safe, having their backs. The more I visualized that connection, the different branches that wove between us, the more I could feel them.

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