Page 46 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

Silently, I lifted the hem of my shirt so he could see my abdomen. The golden cracks had spread down far enough to almost reach my belly button. Marcus stared, his face paling, then his eyes flicked up to me.

“How long has this been happening?”

I found myself wishing that he was being a little goofier. The seriousness of his voice meant this was as bad as I feared, maybe even worse.

“Since right after the curse was broken,” I said, letting my shirt fall back down. “Have you seen it before?”

“I’ve heard about it,” Marcus said. “It’s very rare. Does it hurt?”

“It aches a little,” I said. “Usually when I’ve used a lot of power. I’ve been trying to keep the big spells to a minimum.”

“That won’t help, I’m afraid.” He leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He looked exhausted. With the glasses back in place, his eyes bore into mine. “If anything, the big spells might help. There’s only so much magic the human body can contain, Evangeline. You’re overloaded with power, and it’s trying to break out.” He spoke flatly, without the lilting whimsicality I was so used to.

“The curse was feeding off my magic,” I said slowly. “It was keeping this from starting, wasn’t it?”

“I suspect so.”

“What happens if it keeps going?” I asked. “You said you’ve heard about stuff like this. What happened to the other people?”

Marcus hesitated, not meeting my eyes.

“I need to know,” I pressed.

He sighed. “You aren’t going to like it.” He waved a hand and a globe on a tall three-legged stand tottered over. It was an elaborate thing, inlaid with stones for each country. The brass bands around it probably meant something.

“I figured I wouldn’t. That’s why I need to know.”

The globe finished waddling over to me, and I leaned over to get a better look. The surface moved, zooming in, and the little inlaid stones shifted and changed. After a blur of magical masonry, I was suddenly looking at a spot in the Antarctic marked with golden lettering. This part of the map showed the coast of Antarctica, and the continent itself was made of white feldspar, floating in an ocean of pale blue quartz, according to the part of my brain that had gotten so used to magical bullshit, it could identify a wide spectrum of magically useful plants and minerals. Zoomed in this close, the globe wasn’t smooth. The stone that made up the water was, but the land was textured in a way that looked like the natural shape of the rock, but I was willing to bet it was a perfect representation of the actual place’s topography.

“Ross Crater,” I read. The globe blurred and shifted again. Another set of lettering, this time picked out against the fire opal of eastern Australia. “Deniliquin Crater.” Again, and now it was the Indian Ocean, made of azurite. “Shiva Crater.” I got the message. “Enough,” I snapped at the globe, and it waddled away, somehow managing to look chastened.

“Is that what always happens?” I asked Marcus. My voice was barely above a whisper, which I hated. I wanted to be calm and collected about this, but I simply couldn’t manage it.

“Those are the stories magical history has remembered,” Marcus said carefully. “I don’t wish to give you false hope, but I will point out that people are more likely to remember someone exploding than they are to remember someone being a bit under the weather and then recovering.”

I nodded, looking down at my hands. The craters had been massive, which I knew because the globe had provided pretty precise measurements. How much force had to leave the human body all at once to make a crater 372.8 miles across?

“What do I do?” I asked. I didn’t know if I was asking Marcus or the universe at large. I didn’t know if either of them would have an answer.

Marcus came over and knelt in front of my chair, cupping my hands in his dry, callused hands. “There are some things we can try. I’ve failed to prepare you for anything close to this level of magic, but there is still time for me to rectify that to the best of my abilities.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. “We know there are ways to draw away magic, Evangeline. Methods that have been used over the years. We can adapt them to help you. For now, stop holding yourself back from casting powerful spells. Getting the energy out will help you. We just need to find a way to make sure you’re using more than you’re taking in.”

I sniffled, pulling one of my hands free to wipe at my wet cheeks. Marcus produced a handkerchief from one of his many pockets—monogrammed with someone else’s initials, I noticed—and I wiped my face with it, then blew my nose. “Sorry,” I said. “Snotty crier.”

“You get that from your father.” Marcus patted my hand. “The man had a face like a faucet. Now, you remember our lessons, I know that. What is the main role of a witch’s familiar?”

“Being a source of magic, and also grounding it,” I recited.

“Very good,” Marcus said, and if I was in a better place I would’ve been embarrassed by how much that praise boosted me up. “You have Pothos with you now. He can help with some of this. I know he isn’t properly your familiar, but he can still take on the role even without the binding ceremony. I’ll ask some of my more trustworthy associates if they’ve heard anything about witches who managed to cure this. I’ll pose it as a hypothetical interest, of course. And in the meantime, I’ll see about getting something set up to keep you balanced. A mobile version of the devices like the one you mentioned finding in Chanel. In the very worst case, we have a fallback,” he added, tapping the band of the damaged magic-stopping tattoo around my arm. “If things get really bad, we can refresh this with the intention of removing it later on.”

I nodded. “I don’t want to explode,” I managed in a tiny voice. It was a wild enough sentence that it startled a laugh out of me.

“I solemnly promise that I will do everything in my power to keep you from exploding,” Marcus said. He rubbed my hand and stood. “Come on. I know just the thing to take your mind off this. I think it’s time to show you the secret project I’ve been working on.”

My head wasn’t exactly clear after that, but I definitely felt more together. It was nice to know what I was facing, even if it was horrible. At least it meant my mind couldn’t conjure up even more horrible possibilities. Knowing that I should use my magic was also a huge weight off, given how much was depending on me.

I trailed after Marcus, and Gabriel sauntered over to join us, putting an arm around my waist. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. “You look troubled.”

I managed a smile. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I would tell him tonight. I didn’t want to do a striptease in the middle of the safe house, and I knew Gabriel would want to see the cracks.

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