Page 32 of Anchor

The magic came.

It sliced right through me, not in harmony with my body or with the spell as it should be at all. Instead, it behaved like it wasmy enemy and it wanted to cause me as much pain as possible while it shot down my arm and used my ring as its anchor point, then came out and spread onto the jacket.

The only reason why I didn’t scream was because I had my tongue between my teeth and my muscles clenched tightly while the red flames danced on the black leather for a moment, then merged with it, becoming invisible to my eyes.

Tears streamed down my cheeks in a rush. Goddess, this was so, so wrong. Magic didn’t hurt when it came out of you. Magic was in tune with your body, your thoughts, the air around you—magic doesn’t hurt!

So then why were my knees shaking and my arm pulsating with pain? The spell worked. I could tell just by feeling the shifted energy of the jacket. The protective spell was active, and I had no doubt it would hold, but that pain.

That pain wasnotsupposed to be there at all. I thought I’d imagined it in the Council’s chambers, but I hadn’t. It had just been less then, probably because I’d used first-degree spells.

Releasing my breath, I went and sat on the bench on the wall across from my locker, and I gave myself a second to calm down. I gave my body the chance to relax, my heart to slow its beating.

It was okay. It hurt because I’d been Mud and then I’d drained that Rainbow. It hurt because thiswasn’tnatural—but it was still better than no magic at all. It was still so much better than having no means to protect myself, and maybe it would get easier. Maybe I just needed to practice.

I could use the gym and the training area for that. My phone was enough charged that it turned on, but other than a couple missed calls from Poppy, and random app notifications, nothing new there. No call from an unknown number, and no text—I checked. I’d secretly hoped that Taland had somehow found my number and sent me his location when he came out of the Iris Roe, but he hadn’t.

Then the locker room door opened.

I was finding it very difficult to cling to my old instincts of keeping a straight face no matter what. Maybe it was just the exhaustion. Maybe it was that the Iris Roe had left me with more trauma that I was probably ever going to realize, but when that door opened, I turned with my eyes wide and my mouth open and my hands on the handles of my knives—which surprised me. My magic was no longer what I reached for first to protect myself—it was my weapons.

Luckily, I didn’t need to draw them out nor use that awful magic on anyone, because it was only Cassie coming through with a big smile all over her beautiful face.

“Guess who’s back,” she sang. “Back again!” Then she screamed—Woooo!—and ran and hugged the shit out of me so hard I was having trouble breathing.

She’d hugged me like that the last time we saw each other, too. When nobody else wanted to come even close to me. When nobody else wanted to help me even though they all saw I was barely standing.

She’d been there and she’d hugged me and she’d helped me and she’d cried. I remembered that perfectly well.

Maybe that’s why I suddenly found myself wrapping my arms around her, too, hugging her the way I hugged people so rarely. I guess multiple near-death experiences could turn a girl into a hugger because I’d hugged Poppy with my own free will back at the mansion, too.

“Oh, goddess, I am so happy you’re here! You be kicking ass, woman. Hi-five!” Cassie said when she stepped back and raised both hands. I hi-fived her with both of mine, too, and I was actually smiling.

“Hey, Cassie,” I said, and I thought I might burst in tears at this point, but thank goddess I didn’t.

“Hey, yourself. Look at you—fresh out of the Iris Roe.” She cheered as she leaned back and made a point out of looking down my body to the tips of my boots. My cheeks flushed instantly, but I didn’t bother to try to pretend I wasn’t affected.

In fact, I didn’t think I wanted to bother so much to keep everything on the inside anymore. What was even the point?

“It’s just me,” I told her, and she beamed.

“It’s just you—plusbrand-new magic and five million dollars in your bank account!” The way she screamed made me cover my ears because I was going to go deaf any second. “The rich keep on getting richer.Tsk-tsk-tsk,” she teased me.

“It’s the way of the world,” I said with a shrug. “You look good, Cassie.” Because I really wanted to stop talking aboutmenow. That had been enough—more than enough.

“Thank you, sweetie. And you areglowing.Who woulda thunk the Iris Roe would doll you up like this?”

I flinched. “Pretty surenot dyingshould getthatcredit.” Not even that, but my grandmother’s healers. I hadn’t even been conscious, but I could tell they’d done a lot of spells on me because I felt reborn. Completely healed, not an ounce of pain in my body—when I wasn’t using this new magic, that is. Even my skin was glowing like I’d spent months at the spa.

“That, too,” Cassie said with a wave of her hand. “Tell me, c’mon. How was it? Did you see a lot of people die?”

She sat down on the bench and I joined her, and she was actually serious about that question.

“I did, yes.” A lot more than I wanted to remember—and I’d killed people, too. In the Redfire challenge, in that Ghost Festival where the sound of those instruments that played themselves had blurred my common sense and reason completely. I’d lost it—really lost it there, and who knew how many lives I’d taken?

Goddess, the guilt was going to eat at me for as long as I lived. It had already begun to dig a hole right in the middle of my chest.

“And? Tell me—how in the fuck did you survive, woman?! Don’t get me wrong, I am the happiest girl in the world that you did, but the Iris Roewhilebeing Mud? That’s gotta be a hell of a story.”

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