Page 106 of Bright Soul

“Starsear is commonly a spell for celestial witches with a star alignment. Like you, bub! It makes one gigantic star-shaped, uh, thing, that explodes,” the handbook continued cheerfully in itssqueaky toy voice. Now that it had identified the spell, it flew a curlicue over my head.

It then shouted a dramatic “KABEWM!” and flopped out of the sky with the clap of its pages snapping closed.

I snickered. I couldn’t help it. Ever since the mating circle ritual, I found it as amusing as Cress did.

She peered into the room I’d claimed for the evening, and my cock twitched just at the sight of her.Down, boy. Sharing lust with two other dudes was ridiculous. Especially when I was usually the first to get distracted and thus sent to the closet.

“Is everything okay?” Cress asked.

“Just demonstrating how devastating Starsear is,” the handbook whispered from the floor.

She came in to pick it up and gave it a little toss so it would take flight again. “Everything’s fine,” I added.

“Well, good. I thought you might want to know that Phaeron is having Lucas experiment with his magic.”

I clenched my fists. Lucas had barely begun to recover from his coma. There had to be a damn good reason he was being pushed to use his nebulous new magic, no matter how powerful Phaeron thought it might be. “Where?” I demanded.

We walked to the row of containment rooms for the former torchbearers. One was unlocked, and inside were the two men, standing over an unconscious body resting on a narrow cot. Phaeron watched Lucas nearly as closely as my brother stared at the woman, his hands held palms out toward her.

The door latched behind us loudly, and Lucas startled. He turned our way, and then a wide smile split his pale face. “Hey, big bro! Guess what,” he said.

An ugly gasp sounded from the woman he’d been working magic on. She leveraged herself to her elbows, looking around with rapid breaths causing her chest to heave. Phaeron nudged Lucas our way and bent to speak to her in soothing tones.

Lucas came over and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’ve figured out how I can gather more energy for my affinity. It turns out that helping others with damage to their souls gives me the power to help more people.” He beamed with pure relief. The idea of hurting others to acquire soul energy had really triggered him.

I glanced over him in a once-over. “And you’re feeling all right?” I asked.

He considered himself, finger to chin in thought. His nod was slow in coming. “I think so. You know how it was hard to activate blood runes when we first took our affinity? It’s like that. The more I practice, the faster and easier it is. And Phaeron’s been a great teacher.” With a glance over his shoulder, he shrugged. “Though he tends to disappear a lot.”

The dimensional in question had left behind shadowy smoke in place of him and the woman Lucas had healed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d taken her to one of our safe houses to wait for the trip to the ocean gate.

“Does he jump scare you when he comes back, or does he save that for Cress?” I asked.

“Oh, I think he reserves that for me,” she said. “I’ll just be minding my own business, and everyone else goes quiet. And I ask myself ‘He’s behind me, isn’t he?’”

The shadows twitched behind her, taking shape into Phaeron. There was a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “He’s not always standing behind you. That would be ridiculous,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from giving him away.

“Yeah, well…” She drifted off and glanced over her shoulder, yelping when he took that moment to grab her.

Lucas made ablechface when their play wrestling turned into kissing, and I elbowed him. “Hey, she has a sister,” I said in an undertone.

There was one benefit to the bleaching he’d gone through. He clearly blushed up to his ears when I embarrassed him. “Ben,” he complained. “I’m some kind of soul witch now. I don’t have time to think about girls.”

“Pretty sure you’ll be back to that in no time,” I teased.

Phaeron cleared his throat as he pulled away from Cress. “I did have a goal for us to reach this evening,” he said, gesturing for Lucas to follow him. “We have containment rooms to clear, and then I have some news to share. Grant has returned with our last glimpse of information on Myuna’s machinations.”

“Oh, where is the spy extraordinaire?” I asked, following my brother and Cress as we all headed for the next containment room.

“At this hour, resting,” he answered. Somehow, he also sent me a message through the magic of the mating circle. He’d prefer to tell us something privately and had already bribed Grant to keep it to himself until tomorrow morning. Cress’s eyes narrowed, like she knew he’d done something, but she didn’t comment.

I’d have to ask him how he did that. He seemed to be figuring out what this magic could do a lot faster than the rest of us.

“Anyway, these last few torchbearers are more recent victims. Myuna’s power runs deeper in them…nearly embedded in their souls. I was able to untie her control of them, but her corruption remains,” he said to Lucas. “I would be quite keen to see if you can help them.”

Lucas squared his shoulders with confidence. “Leave it to me,” he said.

I guessed I was turning overprotective, as I earned an annoyed look over his shoulder when I said, “Just don’t overexert yourself, okay? I don’t want you leaving this pocket dimension wheeled out on a hospital bed.”

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