Page 38 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

There was a loud thump as Isabella jumped down from the floating ottoman, her heavy boots slamming onto the tabletop. Marcus tsked at her under his breath and was ignored by everyone involved.

“I can help,” Isabella said shortly.

I blinked up at her. “Are you sure?” Things were still weird between us, and I was afraid they might stay that way.

“Yeah,” she said. “Call it academic curiosity. I’m pretty much done here anyway.” She looked down at Marcus, who nodded.

“Thank you for your help,” he said. “I should have this up and running in no time.”

“What are you working on?” I asked. Crafting artifacts was not my strong suit. I could make some standard utility things, but technical work like what Marcus was doing was so far beyond me, I couldn’t even figure out the shape of what he was trying to do.

“It’s a secret,” Marcus said.

I rolled my eyes, and was surprised when Isabella chuckled. She hopped down from the tabletop, careful of the wires Marcus had set up.

“So, what do I need to do, exactly?” she asked.

“We need to be touching,” I said, and it came out sounding apologetic. “Doesn’t have to be skin to skin as long as you’re grabbed on, and then you just walk with us. I’ll do the rest.”

Isabella hesitated for a moment, then grabbed my upper arm in an awkward death grip. It felt less like we were going to be walking together and more like I was a prisoner she was about to frog-march. On my other side, Lissa tucked her hand into the crook of my arm delicately, like a fine lady going for a constitutional through the botanical garden or something. I started to walk, and there were a few awkward steps as they tried to match my tempo. As soon as we were all in sync, I slipped us into the flow.

There was that familiar swoop and jolt, then we were in a clearing. One massive, dead oak stood in the middle, completely charred black but somehow still standing. Moss climbed up the trunk to the bare branches, and tiny purple flowers crowded the floor of the clearing.

Isabella stumbled to a stop, but I was already slowing us down, not wanting to jar her too much by making multiple jumps her first time. My chest ached oddly.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

“It’s intense, I know,” I said.

“We were inside magic,” Isabella said. “I mean, actually inside of it. Not part of it, but…” She shook her head, speechless. After a second, she let out the angry sniffle that I knew meant she was starting to tear up.

“I’m going to gather some flowers,” Lissa said, all faux-casual. “Over on the other side of the clearing. I may even hum to myself in an idyllic manner, so I probably wouldn’t hear any conversations that may happen.”

It amazed me how sometimes vampires were so subtle that you couldn’t even recognize what they were working toward, and sometimes they were as delicate as a bowling ball to the nose.

Isabella still had a death grip on my arm, so when I headed for the opposite end of the clearing, she drifted along behind me. I found a fallen log and steered her toward it.

“It isn’t the same for the vampires,” I said as we sat. Other side of the clearing or no, vampiric hearing was uncannily strong. “They’re not used to magic the same way we are. It’s part of them, sure, but they don’t know how to use it.”

“It was so…”

“Overwhelming?” I offered.

Isabella nodded.

“The first time was horrible,” I admitted. “Kind of like… Have you ever been pushed into a pool when you weren’t expecting it?”

“Yeah,” Isabella said, a little wetly. “Amy B’s birthday party in the eighth grade. I didn’t have time to take a breath before I hit the water. Gulped in a big lungful of pool water.”

I had a pretty good mental list of the recurring players in Isabella’s stories about her childhood, but that took me a second. “Was that rich Amy or racist Amy?”

“Rich Amy,” Isabella said. “She was also kinda racist.” Her death grip on my arm eased.

“You went to school with way too many Amys.”

She laughed. “Yeah, tell me about it.” We were quiet for a moment, then Isabella cleared her throat. “Does it still feel like that?”

I shot her a questioning look.

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