Page 6 of The Spell Caster

I heard the roar of the ocean in the silence.

Chapter 2

LAYLA

The world around me suddenly seemed bright and chaotic. Voices shouting in the distance, footsteps walking quickly, loud scraping and shuffling.

“Your spell caster is in good hands, guardian. She’s going to be fine,” someone was saying. “Can you let us take a look at that forehead?”

My eyes wouldn’t focus properly. I blinked repeatedly, trying to clear the dark spots.

“Layla.” I felt Costi’s hand on mine. I was lying on a bed.

“What’s going on?” I tried to say, my voice hovering far away from my body.

“Layla, you scared the fuck out of me.”

I let my head fall to the side toward his voice, my vision clearing a bit as my consciousness strengthened. Costi was hunched over next to the bed on a too-small stool.

I gasped, taking him in. The right side of his forehead was marked with a wicked gash that had been barely cleaned, and his left arm was in a sling. His shirt was in tatters.

He ignored my reaction, holding my face in one hand and peering into my eyes, as if looking for signs of concussion. “You passed out and banged your skull.”

I wiggled, trying to sit up, but Costi’s hand on my arm kept me in place. “Don’t,” he said.

Something on my back burned, and I remembered. The attack. The angels. Those were talon marks all over Costi’s body.

I was in the infirmary. An IV bag hooked above me was feeding fluid into the vein of my hand. Around me and outside, the Circle was pandemonium. It smelled like a mix of disinfectants and smoke. Something very bad was going on.

“Costi—”

An older medic in a blue uniform leaned over me. I’d seen him around in our tiny community but couldn’t remember his name. He held up a pen in front of my eyes, moving it back and forth. As I followed it with my gaze, he grunted. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with the kit for your stitches, guardian,” he said to Costi, pulling the partition curtain around the bed shut as he left.

Had Costi carried me here with his injured arm? My mouth tasted coppery, like I’d bitten my tongue. “What… happened?”

“What happened?” Costi shoved his good hand through his already messed-up hair. “You cast a spell big enough to knock satellites out of space and destroyed six angels at once. Ash was able to get our teams out just before the rest of the attack hit.”

“What?” The rest of the attack?

Costi looked down at me seriously. “That was some kind of scouting squadron. It was sheer luck that we were out there and caught them at it, or we’d probably all be dead.”

None of this made any sense. Angels didn’t have scouting squadrons.

I jumped as a close boom rattled the infirmary. Costi placed a large hand over my blanket-covered arm.

“They have weapons,” he said with grim eyes. “Some kind of staff that shoots light.”

Weapons? My blood chilled as the full implications hit me. A large, organized attack, weapons that could hit at range, pinpointing the Circle’s location. This was something worse than bad.

Something else didn’t make sense. “Costi, I cast magic.”

“Yeah, you did.” His teeth flashed as he gave a half grin, wincing a little as it pulled the cut by his eye. “Never seen anything like it.”

I licked my dry lips. “But I didn’t. I mean, I couldn’t have. It’s… what I came to tell you. I don’t have a familiar.”

Costi frowned. “There wasn’t anyone else close enough.”

“It was me, though. I saw the spell form, and I pushed the magic into it. I felt it catch, just like a circle spell.” It felt amazing—my body was still echoing with it, despite the stinging in my back as my bandages rubbed against the bed. “How could that be possible?”

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