Page 47 of Flowerheart

Harness an emotion.Looking into Papa’s eyes did the trick.

They were bloodshot; watery; tired. My magic had kept him from sleeping well. It likely was plaguing his thoughts as much as his body. Sorrow and pain and hate sent magic coursing white-hot through me like water from a burst dam. We needed all of my magic, now; all of its strength.

“I need to touch your heart, Papa,” I told him. Magic rose in me, filling my head like steam. I clung to it. I encouraged it with images of Papa breathing well, of any poison left in him leaving his body.

He unbuttoned the first two buttons of his collar, leaving a little exposed skin just over his heart. He was freckled, like me.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and felt my nose prickle. “I’m scared,” I whispered to him. “What if my touch hurts you?”

“It could also heal me,” he said softly. He smiled. “Your magic isyours.Youtell it what to do.”

He was right. I was its mistress.

“Focus on your breath, Miss Lucas,” Xavier meekly piped up.

I breathed deeply, catching my father’s familiar old-leather-and-cinnamon smell.

“Papa,” I said, willing every syllable to be full of my power and my love for him, “may every beat of your heart be filled with peace, confidence, and freedom.”

My magic swirled inside of me but did not leave me. I sat taller. Screwed my eyes shut. Concentrated. “May every beat of your heart be filled with peace, confidence, and freedom.” Each time I repeated the words, they felt truer. My hands trembled like leaves fluttering in the wind. I pressed them against Papa’s skin.

He flinched and inhaled sharply. I drew back at once, feeling the heady, exciting warmth drain from me.

Xavier took a step closer. “Are you all right, Mr. Lucas?”

“I’m fine,” he said, his eyes squeezed shut. “Perhaps—perhaps it’s just the strength of the spell.” He took a few quick puffs of air and then nodded. “Once more.”

I glanced back at Madam Ben Ammar. She nodded once, but kept her fingertips pressed to her lips. She was staring at my hands, eyes wide with fascination.

“You must tell me if I’m hurting you,” I said to my father. Tears clung to my eyelashes. My chest felt like it had been knitted shut. “I couldn’t bear it if I did.”

He managed a smile even with his tired eyes. “When youwere little, you made me soups of wildflowers and spare ingredients from the kitchen. And I ate every bit of your ‘magic potions.’”

“I probably made you ill.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” He grinned, his eyes and nose crinkling just like mine did. “To what else should I credit my long life and good health?”

I loved him so. Hearing his voice and realizing that I had lived nearly two decades knowing him, calling himmy father,filled me up. I was warm and cozy, delight spreading through me like I’d drunk a cup of warm tea—ginger; our favorite.

I clung to that feeling, imagined it as a rope I could climb—up, up, up, into a better future.

Magic sang through my body, vibrating in my wrists and then buzzing in my fingertips. I exhaled, letting the thrill and the hope and all of it exist peacefully within me.

“May every beat of your heart be filled with peace, confidence, and freedom,” I wished for him. I could see the two of us, as if I was standing above us, watching—I felt years and years older, looking down on us, feeling content and knowing that all was as it ought to be. That, yes, I would succeed, I hadalreadysucceeded in blessing him.

I touched my hands to his chest one more time.

He lurched back. I kept my hands still, as he’d asked. His eyes clenched tighter. His brow wrinkled. His face grew redder and redder. His jaw clamped shut.

You’re hurting him. You’re killing him. You’re only made for destruction,my magic whispered.

My heart quivered in my ribs. My grip on the rope was slipping. I took a breath to center myself and said, “M—may every beat of your heart be filled with peace, confidence, and—”

He cried out. I stumbled back and fell onto the floor.

Two large pink welts glowed on his pale chest, in the shape of handprints. Tears beaded in the corners of his eyes as he coughed: an ugly, heavy sound. He pressed his fist against his mouth.

Madam Ben Ammar slammed her potion case onto the table and flipped it open, tearing the cork out of a bottle.

---