Page 83 of Magic Forsaken

I spent halfthe walk across the street plotting all the ways I was going to make Logan regret his decisions, and the other half wondering if he would let me hug him out of sheer relief.

But who had found him first? What had they done with him? Would they put a harmless teenager in those awful steel-doored rooms downstairs?

No. They wouldn’t. And if they’d tried, he would have flipped. Too many bad memories of places like that.

I started looking around the moment the four of us marched through the front door, and didn’t see him immediately. But as it turned out, that was because he was sitting on the floor, with about a hundred pounds of wriggling dog slobbering happily all over him.

Apparently, Logan had passed the Waffles Test.

When he saw me, he tried to jump to his feet, but Waffles wasn’t having it, so they just ended up in a tangle of arms, legs, and fur. I could almost feel Faris relaxing as he watched them, as if he’d feared a far different scene.

“I’m sorry,” Logan mumbled, his voice a little muffled. “But Ari disappeared, and I didn’t know where else to go. I still haven’t been able to find her.”

“We have Ari,” I reassured him, crouching down to pat Waffles’ head before taking his collar and pulling him off of poor Logan. “She’s fine. But how did you even find me here?”

His eyes widened as he scrambled to his feet and seemed to notice my companions for the first time. “I…uh…”

“It’s safe to talk in front of them,” I promised. “They know you’re an earth elemental.”

He swallowed and turned a little pale. “If I’m outside, I can follow you to work,” he muttered. “I can feel the direction of your footsteps.”

Well, that was an interesting development.

“That’s a very precise and powerful skill,” Faris noted, his green eyes sharp and assessing. “How did you learn to do that?”

Logan glowered at him and crossed his skinny arms stubbornly. “It’s none of your business.”

It was all I could do not to instinctively place myself between the two of them, but part of me understood it would do no good.

“You’re in my city.” Faris informed him sternly. “And I’ve felt the tremors you’ve caused while experimenting with your power. You might think they’re harmless, but even the smallest can create instability if you don’t know what you’re doing. And I’m a much older, much stronger earth elemental than you, so I’d say itismy business.”

I could see the fury building behind Logan’s brown eyes. All the pressure from holding back his power, hiding from the world, begging for answers while just trying to survive. “You have no idea what I think,” he snapped. “Or what I can do.”

He was only thirteen. Scared and confused, in possession of a power he had no idea how to control. I’d feared an explosion for months. Seen the pressure and the fatigue taking its toll. I only hoped I could talk him down before he completely lost his grip on the magic that threatened to tear him apart.

“Logan…”

“No, Raine.” His jaw was set. “You think I don’t see it, but I do. I see how hard you try to make everything okay. I see that you’re tired and you’re worried, but you don’t tell us because you don’t want to scare us.”

His eyes… I’d never seen them glow before. But suddenly they were hot, molten gold.

“But I’m old enough and strong enough to help. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. If you could just trust me…”

Somewhere beneath our feet, the ground began to rumble—a sound like boulders rolling unchecked down a hill. Logan’s head fell back, his teeth ground together, and the veins on his arms popped as his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned pale…

No. Not just pale. They werewhite, veined with gray.

His hands had turned to granite.

“Logan, don’t!” Kes cried, but he seemed beyond hearing.

And Faris? He was watching all this with his head tilted to the side. Not angry. Not judging. Just watching. Until the first tremor rattled the glasses behind the bar.

He took a single step. Laid one hand on the side of Logan’s head.

“Stop.”

My kid crumpled like a dropped sock puppet. Just a heap of bony limbs—eyes closed, face pale. Faris caught him and lowered him to the floor.

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