Page 69 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

But I can't afford to let myself get distracted by her powerful voice. Concentrating instead on the magic that lives inside me, I reach for it and let it pour into my fingertips and into the bracelet. As I do so some of its blue power leaks out into the air around me, turning motes of dust into blue-speckled things. It settles into the panthers' black fur and the wolf's thick grey ruff, turning them blue-tinged.

More and more magic I pour into the bracelet, so much that I feel certain I should find the bottom of the well inside me—but there's so much that it seems to never end. The bracelet's copper alloy takes it all, drinking it up far more efficiently than the trio ever did, to the point that I start to wonder if it's better at channeling than they are—a thought I don't want to dwell on too long.

When the metal is cool against my skin and has turned an unnatural, impossible blue, I know that I'm done. The feral magic inside me, which has no rules and rarely obeys its master, has been tamed inside the confines of the open circle around my wrist. It feels different than it has before, more solid and real than the wild magic that turns shifter mad and made that man eat his own "dick."

And around me, the shifters are beginning to rouse, their eyes glowing blue, strength returning to them. Somehow the magic has made them immune to the spirit—our familiar bond no doubt, finally becoming useful. The more my magic sinks into them, the better they seem.

The spirit pauses in her screaming, apparently finally tired of her own voice. I only know because the pain stops—I can't hear her, my eardrums mangled beyond belief, the sounds around me reduced to a constant ringing in both my ears.

She looks up at me, and this time it's with an actual face. Something about the rage she's released has given her the form she once had in life, if a little fuzzy at the edges. Her hair is a light, platinum blonde only achieved artificially, so thoroughly bleached that it's brighter than her pale skin. The cut of her clothing is old fashioned, her blouse covered in a matronly print, the collar reach up towards her neck modest. There's matte red lipstick on her lips, and impossibly big gold hoops on her ears.

Her blue eyes are sad and lonely. They look through me and beyond, and I get the sense that there is something hidden in their depths, known just beyond the rage she's shown us. Someone did her wrong, at some point in her life, and she's carried that wrongness with her into the afterlife, letting it fester and rot for decades.

I shouldn't pity a poltergeist.

Especially when my job is to banish her back to where she came from.

My hearing pops back into place all at once, the impossible phoenix powers I've inherited since my death turning silence into sound. The spirit and I stare at each other: a woman who died, a witch who came back to life, and the shifters standing between us, gathering their strength to leap at something that can't be made flesh.

My magic has done the impossible, though.

Spinning the bracelet on my wrist, I stare her down, feeling for the bits of blue stuff she's inhaled. They're given her strength and power, yes, but they've also tied her to me in ways she doesn't even realize.

Remembering the day in the cabin when my life changed, I tell the poltergeist, "I hope you're made flesh again."

Magic surges at my touch, spinning out of the bracelet and following the direction of my fingers as I point straight at the once-living woman. Blue hits her forehead, makes her head jerk back with its force, and sinks into her skin.

And the impossible happens right before my eyes.

Chapter 33

Death becomes life.The incorporeal, corporeal. Flesh is born in the shape of a dead woman, and her angry spirit occupies every inch of it. Made flesh, she has certain differences: a glint to her eyes, a flush to her cheeks, a tremble of anger to her hands.

It's strange and marvelous.

Something entirely new, never done by anyone before.

AndIdid that with my feral magic. An entirely new kind of command over spirits that I never even imagined possible.

Already the effects of it are fading, but before they do, the woman opens her mouth to speak.

"He told me he would always protect me." Her voice is softer than I expected, deep with a slight burr to it and a lonely hollowness. "That's what he told me when we decided to go steady. And when he gave me that ring, I saw my whole life before me: a house, two kids—maybe three—and, most of all, happiness.

"I did everything right."

A little hitch of a gasp, and I take another step towards her, even as I'm wrapped up in her story. The power of her words lets me see the life she lived: the little blue house with the gabled roof, a porch where she used to smoke cigarettes and look down the road, waiting for his car, and neatly trimmed rosebushes.

"I read every magazine, studied every recipe in the cookbooks my mother-in-law gave me. When he came home there was always dinner on the table and his favorite bourbon in a cold glass. If he wanted it, I gave it to him. No matter the cost. We were happy together."

There are images beneath her words which contradict her last sentence: a man's voice raised in anger, an open palm that descends on the side of a pale cheek, a shadowy corner, and a rifle in the closet that haunts her dreams. Tears on a silk pillowcase, and a box beneath the bed where she puts money every time she goes grocery shopping, cutting coupons so he doesn't know.

I feel for her. And take another step forward, because I need to send her back to the spirit realm. But making her corporeal, at least, has done what my instincts whispered it would: given her a slice of peace. The more she speaks the closer she gets to laying down her grudges and moving on.

To my left, David growls and curls his legs beneath him as if to leap forward and tear her throat open. I hold my hand out, letting him know that I don't want that. She's dangerous, yes, and he could maybe tear her apart in this form—but as soon as he does her spirit will be ripped into a dozen pieces and scattered on the wind, never to be put back together again.

She deserves better than that.

She deserves peace.

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