Page 68 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

More than anything, though, I want tolive.

This is different than the desperate, angry feeling that hit me at the end, as the Heretic cut my body up and every part of me began to succumb to weakness and death. I have something to liveforthat isn't revenge.

I have Xavier's sweet kindness, his hand tentatively reaching for mine, palms brushing, fingers interlacing. David's scowls turning to subtle smiles as we kissed and kissed until all breath was gone, two waves crashing against the shore together. Then there's Reggie, who makes my eyes roll and brings scandalized laughs to my lips, who has promised so much more and gives of himself with free abandon.

I want to liveforthem.

And for me, too.

I'm so selfish and alive. Nothing can stop me from getting what I want, not even an angry spirit. Let it burst my eardrums and bring me to my knees—I'll get up again and do whatever it takes to stop it. There's a life waiting for me, and I won't let it slip out from beneath my fingers.

Forcing my muscles to engage, my legs to straighten, I stand up. Slowly. Inexorably. Despite the pain.

Ignoring the blood that trickles down my earlobes, thepopas my hearing turns to white noise, I focus on my naturalistic senses. Pushing them outward, I try to read the spirit, to find out why it's angry, and what it needs to move on.

At first the thing resists my touch. It doesn't want me to look inside its soul and see the life that it once lived before becomingthis.But I don't think that it's feeling private; I think that it's afraid. The instant I look into the spirit's life it'll flash beforebothour eyes, making it human again. Making it capable of feeling pain and regret, not just anger.

So it doubles down on trying to hurt us. In addition to the scream of agony, it flies at me, talons raking at my flesh. The shifters roar and swipe at it, but their claws and fangs don't go through the ghost's ephemeral spirit.

Angry, I reach for it, trying to drain its strength and fight back. But I keep hitting up against the walls its formed, and I can't seem to do anything to stop it. I feel helpless, alone and afraid. The trio is depending on me and I'm failing them.

Until a hand falls on my shoulder, and the whole world quiets for a moment. Time itself seems to pause around me. I take in a deep breath, hear my lungs draw in air, and realize that my hearing is slowly but surely returning to me. Somehow, the screaming has stopped.

Everything has stopped.

"I can only do this for a moment," Mage Auerbach says, the source of the magic and the hand on my shoulder. "I'm no Grim. Time doesn't bend to my will for more than a few seconds."

"Thank you," I tell him, even though just this morning I was looking forward to his leaving and never coming back. "What do I do now? Draining my powers won't work."

"You have to open up a door to the spirit realm. It will require channeling your power into this."

He passes over a thin copper-colored bracelet, his movements strangely slow as if through molasses; the whole time his hand never leaves my shoulder, and I realize that's how he's keeping me in this time bubble with him.

"Once you've filled the bracelet with your power, it'll be augmented, and hopefully you'll be able to direct it more easily. Say this spell."

He murmurs three words in my ear in a language I've never heard before, and I feel something unlock inside my mind, as if there was a door there all along that I never knew could be opened.

Gervisha.

Spergorya.

Vessily.

Strange words, like names in an ancient language that belonged to martyrs whose blood splattered the ground. But they have meaning, even if I only feel that meaning when he says them close together near my ear:gervishaspergoryavessily.Like a spell rooted in rules and order instead of whispers on the capricious wind with nothing but hope to guide it.

This, then, is mage magic.

It's what I've been waiting to discover all this time.

I barely manage to say, "Thank y—" before time crashes back around us.

The screaming starts back up again, and Auerbach yanks his hand off my shoulder to cover his ears. At either side of us, the panthers crouch and lash their tails, while David has started to foam at the mouth. I have to do thisnow, before things get worse and it can never be undone.

It takes everything in me to stop myself from throwing my hands over my ears to drown out the screaming. The sound of it is tearing at my very soul, stealing the little bit of hearing I got back with Auerbach's help, and rending me open to play in my innards like they're a kiddy pool. But I need both hands to channel, and I won't flag now.

This part, I only kind of understand.

Pushing the bracelet up onto my right wrist, I clasp it with my left hand and reach out with the full force of my naturalistic senses. Using them right now hurts; tapping into my ability to feelwhereliving things are andwhatthey're feeling just means bumping up against a dozen different hurt, angry, and terrified shifters—and that's just in the immediate vicinity. The spirit's rage is growing as she—shenot it I realize—fills her voice with everything she didn't get to express in life. I can sense images in the rage now, as she coalesces from a simple ghoul into a more powerful poltergeist.

---