Page 33 of The Illuminated
As much as I dreaded what this trip meant for Daelon and me, I found the tiniest bit of solace in designing human clothes with Clarice. She was among the few people in the castle I could trust, at least in some capacity. Her energy was warm and maternal, with a kick of feistiness.
“Why aren’t jeans fashionable here?” I groaned. “They’re awesome. And versatile. You should make it happen.”
She laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises.”
We sat at a small consulting table at the back of the room, where she chanted against the glass surface until pieces of fabric manifested before our eyes. She’d changed her bright red hair to a dark brown since I’d last seen her, and I wondered if this was her natural color. It suited her.
I still had no idea what Daelon and I were meant to do once we arrived in Paris, as Lucius seemed to be building suspense and keeping me in the dark just to torture me, and Daelon had been avoiding me all week. All I knew was that as Commander of the Guard, Daelon carried out secret missions on Lucius’s behalf—missions he couldn’t remember doing on account of his mysterious blackouts. Lucius didn’t like to leave the castle, probably because of his rampant paranoia and devotion to his kingly narcissism.
I watched in awe as she continued to work, the buzz of magick electrifying the air around us and creativity lighting up her aura with a swirl of vibrant colors. Living in this dark castle with a bunch of mindless witch socialites made me forget how beautiful magick could be.
I sighed. “Can you make me a big sweater? A really fluffy, white one,” I described with much enthusiasm.
“You don’t really need me to make clothes for you, do you?” She quirked a brow, her aura expanding into curious yellow hues.
“Perhaps not. But manifesting drains me. It’s not my natural gift,” I explained. “By the way, thank you for keeping my secret.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, of course.” She paused, her mouth twitching. “Not all of us are the same here, Áine. You’d be surprised.”
I smiled. “I’m beginning to understand that.” I thought of Abraham and Serena, who’d shown me nothing but kindness.
“If you ever need anything, anything at all, you may call upon me,” she said softly, and though her tone was casual, I saw a flare of bright white light flicker in her aura. It was so quick I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it or not.
But then Clarice suddenly went quiet; her features hardened. I turned to see Daelon and Lucius enter.
“Time for you and Daelon to leave,” Lucius said impatiently.
“I thought that we were—”
A sudden jolt of magick sped my way, infecting my muscles and sending me staggering to my feet. I channeled on impulse, firing right back at Lucius and constructing a makeshift shield.
“Hey!” I bellowed. “What the hell is your problem?”
Daelon shook his head as he shot me a warning look, and I could sense him lend his shielding ability to the space between us.
Lucius deflected my shot, and his palms glowed an eerie, crackling black. “I’m not in the mood,little witch. Grab your things before I make you very, very sorry for taking aim at your King.”
We stared at each other in a tense standoff, and our audience grew more and more anxious the longer we refused to back down. I bitterly swallowed down the urge to fight back—to finally show Lucius just how much he’d underestimated me. But Clarice didn’t deserve to have any part of this, so I was first to break, hastily throwing the clothes in the bag I’d packed.
Lucius snapped and pointed to the space in front of him, which drew a glare from me and a held breath from Daelon. My power bristled, waiting eagerly for the command to knock him on his ass.
Instead, I begrudgingly stepped into the space across from Daelon, and our eyes locked. I watched Lucius close his and channel the fierce lightning and raw chaos of his power, and it soon encircled Daelon and me like smoke. I guessed he was somehow opening a channel for us to travel between dimensions, as I was sure he’d done previously when Daelon came to New York to rescue me.
I coughed as some of the shadowy smoke entered my lungs, and the entire room transformed into the eye of a cyclone. I could no longer see Lucius, only Daelon, who reached for my hand in the darkness. Soon we were falling, and it felt like the stomach lurch of a steep drop of a rollercoaster.
I screamed as the world around us disappeared, with nothing to hold onto but each other and no solid ground beneath our feet. But then the sky opened up above into a dark blue, and my feet met pavement. The solidness of Parisian buildings spun into view, off-white with blue roofing, lined with black fenced-in terraces and intricate stone carvings around each window.
I thought I was going to be sick. I leaned into Daelon as the world steadied, taking in one breath after another.
The din of voices, movement, and cars rose around us, and I noticed immediately the difference in energetic atmosphere between Aradia and Earth. Everything was more solid, less magickal, but as I peered around, I realized that everything was brighter and more alive than before.
“Woah,” I said, my senses overwhelmed. “This realm feels different.” I pushed off from Daelon’s chest as my stomach settled.
“Your power was being suppressed before. You’ve yet to experience the human realm from the perspective of a powerful, adult witch,” Daelon explained. His arm snaked around my waist as I took in the beauty of Paris. We were on a narrow street, luckily out of sight from the busier area to our left.
I hoisted up the black bag stuffed with clothes to my shoulder, noticing for the first time that Daelon was wearing normal human clothes again. He wore a crewneck, soft gray sweater, dark jeans, and a small leather backpack, while I wore a long-sleeved, green dress with warm, black suede boots that came to my thighs. We’d fit in well.
The cold air was biting, and I recognized the familiar scent of the city. It was strangely comforting. I was surprised to find I could pick out each individual note like a complex wine: the smell of fresh-baked pastries and bread, car exhaust, much-too-strong cologne, trash, and restaurant food. I could also sense the pull of so many human auras floating around us, each containing their own desires, great loves, heartbreaks, secrets, and emotional complexity. There was nothing more magical than a city filled with endless possibilities.
