Page 99 of Anchor

Maybe he worried about what we were going to do next. Maybe he worried about us getting caught—all very valid reasons.

“Did something happen out there?” I asked him the third time.

“Nope—still perfectly okay.” He leaned in and kissed me. “You’re not going to getthisif you keep asking.” And he waved the half of his second sandwich at my face.

I squinted my eyes at him. “You sure, though?”

“That’s it, the sandwich’s mine.” And he made for the door.

“No, no—wait!”

And that’s how we ended up running around the tiny space, up the stairs and to the bedroom again, laughing and chewing at the same time. A miracle I didn’t choke for real.

“I’ll trade you for a kiss,” Taland said when I entered the room to find him in front of the bed, waiting with the sandwich in his hand.

I jumped in his arms like a madwoman and kissed all the air out of his lungs.

He sat us on the bed, leaned against the headboard himself, then put me between his legs, and fed me the delicious sandwichhimself until I couldn’t even breathe anymore. I hadn’t eaten so much in ages.

The drapes were pulled only halfway to the sides, but plenty of light came through. The sun would be setting soon. Good thing we didn’t really need any light. And if we did, we could both do magic.

I told him about some of my missions, about the training academy, about the people I’d worked with. I told him about Jim and Jam, too, but all the while something kept nagging at my brain, like a voice that I couldn’t quite understand.

Then Taland told me about his childhood in the Blue House, about his dad, who died when his brother Seth was just born, and his mom who cared for them until her dying breath. He was eleven then, still just a kid.

While he spoke, I played with the bracelet I’d left under the pillow when he went to town to get us food.

The more he spoke, the clearer that voice inside my head became, too.

“Taland?” I said, when he stopped talking for a little while.

“Hmm?” His lips were pressed to the top of my head.

“I think…I think you should try it, too.”

He stopped moving, muscles locked for the shortest second, but he heard me. He raised his head to rest his chin over mine.

“The anchor?”

“Thebracelet,” I corrected. “We still don’t know if it’s an actual anchor. But you walked on the Drainage, and everything in that game was real and the fact that it hurts when you use your magic now…” My voice trailed off and I shook my head. “I don’t know, but whatever happened to us there, whatever the reason yousawmy memories, I think we’re the same.” Why else would it suddenly hurt him to do magic? Why else would he still be able to do magic even after walking through the Drainage?

Taland thought about it for a long moment. “I’m Mud,” he eventually said, like he was just testing the word on his tongue.

“Or maybe you are…whateverIam. You’re not really Mud—that didn’t feel like this. That was different.”

“You couldn’t access magic at all.”

I nodded. “Not with pain and not without. I had my ring in the forest before they took it from me, and it didn’t work. It didn’t respond, like I wasn’t connected to it at all. It was there, just…unavailable.”

That was the best explanation I could give him.

“No, I don’t think I ever lost connection, but at first, my magic did seem morebrownthan black. Not anymore, though,” Taland said in wonder.

“Something did happen in that challenge. I don’t know—just try it.” I sat up straighter and turned to him. “Here—just a spell.”

Taland looked at the bracelet I offered him, not grinning for a moment. He just looked at it and didn’t even blink.

“And…if it works?”

---