Page 76 of Magic Claimed
The rest of us would fight to prevent that from happening, but without Faris’s reputation to shield us? The battles would never end, and he knew that as well as we did.
With a sigh that seemed to shake the very floor beneath our feet, he picked up the glass in front of him, eyed itin resignation, and then drained every last drop before setting it back down with a gentle clink.
“These walls,” he rumbled quietly. “I know they’re only bricks and boards. But they’re more than that to me. I’ve lost sleep and cried tears and dripped sweat over every inch of this place. My blood is in the earth beneath this foundation, and I know every grain of dirt, every bit of gravel, every tiny hairline crack. I know how it shifts, how it groans, and how it weathers every storm. It’s a part of me, or I’m a part of it, and I couldn’t walk away, even if I wanted to.”
He couldn’t seem to look any of us in the eye, but he was staring so fiercely at the table in front of him, I half expected it to burst into flames.
“And it's the same with all of you.”
Then he glared around at the lot of us. “So you can stop looking like we’re all at a funeral. Give a man a chance to be maudlin for half a second before you decide he’s lost his mind.”
The room went silent for a count of five before we all dissolved into relieved laughter. Kira put her face on Faris’s shoulder and hugged him while she cried. Seamus walked back behind his bar, shaking his head, a tiny grin tugging at his lips, while the rest of us turned to survey the damage. Wondering how much could be saved.
“This,” Callum murmured from beside me. “This is what I want for the shapeshifters. The feeling that we have one another’s backs. That it’s not clan against clan, but a system of mutual support.”
“And they’ll see it eventually,” I told him, leaning against his shoulder, almost as if to remind myself that he was still there.Still standing. Still fighting for this future we both wanted. “Even if they have to pout a little first.”
He squeezed my hand. “Shall we go figure out what Blake is up to?”
I squeezed back. “You do know the way to a girl’s heart.”
As much as I wanted to stay and help begin the long process of restoring The Portal, Jeremiah and Tabitha needed me. There were so many here who cared, and many more in the Idrian community who would show up once they knew what had happened. It might take time, but The Portal would be back in business. Every board and stone back in place, every trace of fire removed, and every broken beam repaired. Even the bar—the heart of The Portal, that had been broken nearly in two by the dragon’s attack…
Ethan was standing there now, running his fingers along the splintered edges of the crack, back and forth, just as he had on the headboard in Jeremiah’s room. For once, his hair was tucked behind his ears, and as I walked over to stand beside him, I could see his expression clearly. His eyes were unfocused, as if he were gazing at something beyond the reach of normal vision.
“What do you see?” I asked him carefully, wondering whether this level of destruction might trigger a response from his magic.
He remained silent for a few moments—fingers still in motion, eyes still unfocused—before he answered.
“I can see how to make it right.”
My breath caught.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean”—his voice was soft, his vision still turned inward—“I can see how it all fits. All of the tiny pieces that make it what it is. How they go together. Earth, air, fire, water… I see them. They’re just… different shapes and colors. Hot or cold. Bigger or smaller. Sometimes they share the same space and make something new.” He shook his head, as if words truly could not describe it.
And perhaps they couldn’t. My elemental magic saw water as color. Color that changed depending on its form and intensity. With all four elements at his fingertips, who could even begin to guess how Ethan saw the world?
But if he could truly see how it all fit together? Could see how tomake it right?
“Ethan, whatever you did yesterday…”
“Yes,” he said simply.
And just like the day before, I wasn’t fast enough to stop him. He was still touching the rough, splintered edge of that yawning crack in the bar, but now his fingers stopped moving and hesmiled.
Closed his eyes…
I stood caught between wonder and terror. The last time I saw Ethan with that dreamy, detached expression on his face, five people died.
But this time? It was like pressing a rewind button. Like watching a disaster in reverse—the healing of a wound replayed in time-lapse.
The polished walnut surface of the bar began to glow slightly, like a coal lit from within. A strange hum hovered at the edges of my hearing, vibrating against my teeth until it grewalmost painful. And then… I was staring at the splintered edges along the break, and watched in disbelief as each jagged spike of wood began to melt and flow. Molding themselves back into place. The gap between the halves began to shrink, bit by bit, thinning to only a hairsbreadth before the grain suddenly melded together, stretching and curling as if more liquid than solid.
The glow intensified, capturing everyone in the room, holding us hostage to the bizarre and unimaginable miracle playing out in front of us. No one had ever seen magic like this before. It was likely that no one had everdonemagic like this before.
Ethan’s eyes were glowing like stars, and showed no signs of fading, so I took a step towards him, unsure whether he would be able to stop—whether his magic was controllinghimin the same way it had in the past.
