Page 93 of Anchor

“I think it’s an anchor,” I dared to say. “I don’t know, Taland, but there’s something about it. The magic that comes out of me with this is different.”

“Different, how?” he asked, brows narrow, those dark eyes sparkling with curiosity like precious jewels.

“You sure nobody can see us from outside?”And why the hell was I so excited?!

“Positive,” said Taland, and he was smiling now because he could tell I was excited, too.

I grabbed the bracelet. “Watch.”

I chanted a spell with the same breath. I chose a simple one, to raise the cover in the air only because it was big and the magic would spread possibly halfway around it before it faded, so it would be very clear for us to see.

Thecolorswould be impossible to miss.

I felt the connection going through it this time, as clearly as I always felt my anchor. In fact, I felt the way my magic eagerlychosethe bracelet over my ring, as if it had a mind of its own, and it was happy to be guided by that bracelet.

I was in awe.

The colors were so beautiful, perfectly visible even under the fresh sunlight. They wrapped almost halfway around the blanket lightning fast, and pulled it up in the air with ease. Thenthe flames disappeared, and the cover remained inches off us, floating in the air, while Taland and I looked at each other with mouths open and eyes wide and hearts paused.

Then I burst out laughing and he started cursing while he smiled, standing up from the bed as he watched the floating cover.

Goddess, how I laughed—like I’d just discovered the most wonderful thing. Like I’d just unlocked a beautiful secret—and now that Taland was here, that’s what it felt like. Not something dangerous to be wary of, but somethingbeautiful.

“Sweetness, you just unlocked a whole new level of this game,” Taland said, smiling still.

I let the cover down on the bed slowly. “And this is not all.”

Chapter 18

Rosabel La Rouge

Taland wasn’t surprised.

We were lying down again, the bracelet between us, our hands linked.

“Did you…did you hear me?” I asked, just to make sure I’d actually spoken out loud.

“I did,” Taland said—still not surprised. Which made no sense.

“Even the part when I said,she’s Mud and fourteen and used the bracelet to do colorful magic? Even that part?” Because I’d been lying here and telling him all about Taylor Maddison for the past ten minutes—the whole story from the beginning. And he seemed to take it very…calmly.

“Yes, even that part,” Taland said, the corner of his lips turning up a bit. “I asked you if you’d heard the termLaetusbefore.”

I nodded. “What the Mud used to be called, yes.”

“No, no—what they callMudnow. There’s a difference,” he said. “Iridians who had colors of magic—colors,not color.” Helooked down at the bracelet. “What you just did—thosecolors. All the colors.”

White noise in my head. “You lost me.”

Taland came a little closer, looked into my eyes. “The Laetus had command overallcolors of magic, sweetness. And I think you’re right—these bracelets could be their anchors.”

Now my ears were ringing as well. “Wait, wait, hold on a minute,” I said. “You just said that the Laetus were today’s Mud.”

“They are.”

I blinked. “That makes no sense.” He knew this just as well as I did. We’d both been taught this ever since we could understand anything about magic. “The Mud have no magic—that’s the point of being Mud. Their color is brown. Their color is?—”

“Allthe colors,” he cut me off. “Their magic is brown because it’s a combination of all colors that, when channeled properly, appear as a rainbow, or as whichever color the mage chooses to unleash.”

---