Page 90 of Boy of Chaotic Making

But still the storm raged. Cora was on her knees, screaming, sobbing, and the hurricane spun around her, merciless and unending.

Remember when I had my nightmare?whispered a voice in the back of his mind. A voice with a peculiar lilt to it.Remember when you tried to stop it?

Merritt didn’t understand. What was he doing? Where was he? Why were his legs twisting backward?

It’s okay,the voice assured him. Iremember.

Merritt’s arms moved of their own accord, coming before him, hands pointed not at Cora, but just behind her. The chaos pulled from the walls and centered at that spot, tearing up carpeting and making debris dance like little puppets. Peals like struck glass sounded as one, two, three, four,fivewardship spells boxed around the building chaos. The magic inside spun and twisted, growing angry. Growing bigger and bigger and—

The box exploded outward, a magical bomb, slamming into Cora’s back and knocking her prone. A spherical bead rolled from her hand.

The wind slowed; people covered their heads as debris fell. Coals from the fireplace pattered black against the carpet. Shards of glass fromwindows, mirrors, and picture frames glittered in a great cascade. Fluff from torn cushions snow-flaked drowsily.

Cora lifted her head, then her hands. Her right hand looked as though the ancient talisman she’d gripped had burned it. She cried as she looked at her palm, then smiled in relief.

A loudcrack, almost like thunder, ripped through the room. The ceiling split overhead, sending a large chunk of house down onto Cora.

“Look out!” Merritt/Owein shouted. Lady Helen rushed forward. Cora covered her head.

The chunk of wood and mortar froze a few feet above the ground. Baron von Gayl shielded Cora with his body, his left hand up and shaking with the effort of a kinetic spell to stall the chunk from crushing them both.

A new gust, this time from Briar, shoved the great hunk off to the side. The young woman, covered in dust, ran to the both of them. “Oh, Ernst, thank you. Thank you.”

The fullness was too much. Merritt/Owein dropped to his knees and vomited, then promptly passed out.

Chapter 30

March 11, 1847, London, England

Hulda paced the length of the library, wringing her hands together, heels clacking where they met the tile between Indian rugs. The blue drawing room was completely destroyed, as was the bedroom above it. The conservatory shared a wall with the blue drawing room and had been badly damaged as well. Other adjoining spaces, including the gallery and grand hall, sported some cracks, as if an earthquake had rolled through. A very nauseous Mr. Blightree had taken over the yellow drawing room, where his nephew’s body had been placed under a slew of spells to keep its blood running and lungs breathing ... spells that had hopefully held up during this whole debacle. Cora was bunkering with her mother in the ladies’ morning room, and the local doctor administered to the others in the gentlemen’s morning room. Hulda had already been seen, requiring only a few bandages for cuts she’d gotten from flying debris. Now all she suffered from was immense nerves, anxiety, nausea, trepidation, uncertainty, jitters, and suppressed panic.

She still hadn’t heard about Merritt.

Servants had flocked in the moment Lady Cora’s storm subsided. To think the culprit of all this destruction had been under their noses the entire time, and such a seemingly demure girl! But while thirteenwas old enough for an educated child to know better, education did not equal maturity, as Hulda had reminded herself dozens of times to abate her fury. Surely it was only the child’s possession of a luck spell that had let her get away with it so long. She’d certainly blown out every ward and stone placed in and near the blue drawing room! Cora had been in hysterics as soon as that cursed bead left her fingers, sobbing and apologizing, her hand burned as if she’d grabbed a hot poker by its sharp end. Hulda didn’t understand the working of such magicked artifacts. She wished to learn more, but other things were, presently, more imperative.

Once the magic had ceased, Lady Helen had switched on like a fire rune and taken complete control of the catastrophe. Ithadbeen her shoe in Hulda’s earlier vision. Her shoe, Blightree’s pen, and Cora’s stolen bead, for what little good the soothsaying had done. Now Merritt’s dual-possessed body was in the yellow drawing room with Mr. Blightree, footmen had been sent to retrieve doctors, maids to deliver missives, and Lady Helen had dismissed all other staff for holiday before her house collapsed further. It would cost a fortune to repair Cyprus Hall, between this incident, the breakfast room, and the guest bedroom.

Hulda could not bring herself to care.

So she paced, as quickly as a person could pace without running.Merritt will be fine,she chanted to herself. She’d had multiple visions of the future in which he was alive and hale. Still, her hands chafed and her teeth threatened to break from gritting. Somewhere in the household sounded a symphony of footsteps and greetings, likely another person replying to those emergency missives, but Hulda did not crack the door to check. She wished she’d taken the time to eat before coming here, just so her stomach would have something to throw up.

“Hulda.”

She nearly tripped over herself, hearing the sound of his voice. Spinning toward the door, she couldn’t help but cry out at the sight of Merritt, whole and standing, though bandages stuck up from his collar and sleeves, and his left arm was in a sling. She ran to him and hugged him, earning a gentleoomphfrom the collision. His good arm wrapped tightly around her back and held her close.

Neither of them spoke. He smelled like iodine and frankincense and dust, but he was warm and breathing. Hulda’s tears soaked into his shirt. If he felt them, he didn’t comment.

After an eternity, she pulled back. Touched his face just below a cut on his cheekbone, which he’d gotten shieldingher. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh, everything hurtsimmensely.”

Pulling on his arm, she led him to the closest sofa and made him sit. Knelt on the carpet beside him. “Owein?”

“Not in here anymore.” He rubbed his chest as though it were sore. “Blightree moved him to the body, but he hasn’t woken yet.”

Fear tightened her middle. “And if it doesn’t take?”

Merritt worried his lip, then shook his head. “I suppose a spirit in the walls of Cyprus Hall would fix the place up quickly.”

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