Page 33 of Secrets of the Eternal Flame

‘I’m his mate. He can’t ever be with anyone other than me.’

He paused then asked, ‘And how do you feel about that?’

‘Very conflicted,’ I admitted. ‘I was attracted to Fraser and we’d started to get to know each other, but I wasn’t ready to think about spending the rest of my life with him.’

‘You used thepast tense,’ Ernie noted quietly. ‘Are you ready now?’

I chewed on my lip. ‘No, but I’m… We’re definitely heading into relationship territory and I want to give him a fair chance. Even without the bond, he’s special. I like him. A lot.’

He smiled. ‘Okay.’ His smile faded. ‘Tell me what makes you think you were put in a magical bind.’

‘You know already that I was a magical dud. Well, I’m not any longer. I can see visions of people’s past – their memories. I’ve even caught the odd thought. And,’ I hesitated, ‘I’ve accidentally used telekinesis. Nour thinks Fraser’s pelt saw the bind as something detrimental to me and started to remove it, but the magic I’m acquiring scares me. I dived into Kaz’s mind and confirmed she’d murdered Lorenz, but in doing so I harmed her. She’s retreated into her mind and now she’s in a coma – and it’s my fault for blundering in without knowing what my magic is or does.’

Ernie reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘She was a threat to you and to Yanni. You did the right thing, no matter how guilty you feel. I hope we can restore Kaz – but only so she can face the justice she deserves. Sonny deserves to get some answers, too.’

Hetook a deep breath. ‘I have no empathy magic so I can’t help you with that, but I do have strong telekinesis. I can teach you how to harness it safely.’

I slumped back into the chair, surprised by how relieved I felt. ‘Thank you. When we went to Scotland, I accidentally used it.’ I explained about the rock schism and its potentially fatal effects. If it hadn’t been for the water dragon…

‘How did you feel when the rock fell away?’

‘Totally panicked,’ I admitted.

Ernie nodded as if that were the response he’d been expecting. ‘That makes sense. I’m always at my most volatile when my emotions are high. I’ll teach you a breathing and meditation exercise to control it.’ He stood up and went to his bookshelf where he dug around before withdrawing a slim volume. ‘This will teach you some of the theory.’

I took the book gratefully. ‘Thanks.’ I took another deep breath. ‘When we were in Hallowburn, we found an Eternal Flame and Maddie worked with it for a while. In that moment, she looked about a thousand times better.’

I met his eyes and saw sorrow in them. ‘You know,’ I whispered. ‘You already know that she is addicted to the Eternal Flame.’

‘I suspectedthat she was,’ he admitted. ‘Hopefully the interaction with the Flame in Hallowburn will buy us some time, but in the long term she needs exposure to the Eternal Flame that we can gradually reduce. Using the Flame was safe for her when your parents were alive because of your mother’s guardianship, but I suspect Maddie was too vulnerable to use it for a protracted period of time when it wasn’t protected by a full Guardian.’

I nodded. ‘In Scotland we learned that the Eternal Flame needs to take a piece of soul from the Guardian in order to form a bond.’

‘I suspect it has been drawing on some of Maddie’s soul to sustain itself during the last decade, but for some reason a full bond didn’t form. The symbiotic relationship that should have existed has been bastardised, and both Maddie and the Flame have suffered because of it.’

Because ofme; because I hadn’t been there to take my place as the Guardian. I pushed away the tide of guilt that flooded me. I needed solutions not self-pity. ‘What do we do?’

‘We restore the Eternal Flame and we wean Maddie off it carefully.’

‘And if we can’t restore the Eternal Flame?’

‘Then she’ll have to go back to Hallowburn. If she doesn’t, she could die.’

I swallowed hard. ‘How long do you think we have before it becomes critical?’

‘I don’t know. I need to reassess her magic after that hit of Flame at Hallowburn then we’ll know more accurately what we’re looking at. Realistically it should be a matter of weeks rather than months.’

I swallowed hard. I had only a few weeks to restore the Eternal Flame or Maddie would suffer. I tried to focus on something else before guilt swept away my thoughts; I needed to keep a level head.

‘So we restore the Flame and we wean Maddie off it. What then? If she can’t work with the Eternal Flame, how will she make her ink? She dreams of opening her own tattoo shop and I don’t want her to lose that. She deserves her dreams.’

‘She has significant potential as a potion maker,’ Ernie confirmed. ‘If she can learn to harness her magic into a potion version of the ink, there is no reason why she can’t still succeed. I believe that is possible for her.’

That should have been a cause for me to celebrate, or at least have provided a sense of relief, but I could hear a word lingering in the air. ‘But...?’

‘But it’s the same as it is in so many of these cases – something is holding her back from moving disciplines.’

‘What’s holding her back?’

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