Page 198 of Cherish

Tiny branches running through my fingers and down my arms, my legs.

Vines curling and winding around them.

Leaves and flowers scraping against my skin as they blossom and bloom a little more with each second that passes.

Beneath my feet, I can feel the earth moving, spinning, pulsing with life, and I connect with it. Tap into it. Pull its strength—its magic—inside me and let it sink into my every pore. My every cell. Filling me up, taking me over. Bursting along my heart, my mind, my soul.

As it happens, I take a deep breath. Extend my hands out to my sides. And let just a little of the magic and the chaos inside me go.

The second I do, the ground shimmies beneath my feet. The marble walls and floor start to crack, and the glass decorating the walls of the throne room shatters all at once. Plants begin creeping in through the fissures in the floor and the walls, lush, luxurious,green.

And gold lightning booms across the purple sky.

“Umm, anyone else aware that the big one is hitting right now?” Heather asks, voice thin and high-pitched. “Shouldn’t we be running for a doorway?”

“This isn’t the big one,” Eden answers. “It’s Grace.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” My bestie sounds shook.

“Just wait,” Flint says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “You’ll figure it out.”

He’s right—she will. Because the power is growing inside me, bigger, stronger, more overwhelming than it’s ever been, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll stop being able to contain it.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one, and right now—as I’m filled to the brim with the warmth of the sun and the soil and the streams that make up the world around me—I don’t actually care. How can I, when the magic of the earth is spinning inside me?

I loosen my hold on the string a little more, and the ground around us goes from shimmying to rolling, from cracking to breaking wide open. I guess Jaxon isn’t the only one who knows how to make the earth move. At least not anymore.

But even as the ground beneath the fortress buckles and brays, even as the vines wrap themselves around the throne and the columns and even the very studs of the walls, I know it isn’t going to be enough. Because I’m going to bring down a lot more than this fortress before I’m through.

“Holy. Shit.” Heather’s voice echoes above the ruins. But I don’t have time to explain right now. Not when I have so much more to do.

I yank my arms back, send the vines crashing through marble and walls, bringing the entire fortress down around our heads. When the ceiling starts to cave in, I yell to the others to go outside.

“Not without you,” Hudson growls, and I can tell from the tone that it’s nonnegotiable. But that’s okay. There’s no more for me to do in here, anyway.

I step over one of the crumbled walls and out into a garden. And the moment I do, the magic inside me leaps like it’s just been given an infusion.

My friends, Jaxon carrying Mekhi, and the Shadow Queen flood out into the garden behind me. Once I know they’re safe, I turn around and throw every ounce of power I have into bringing the entire fortress down.

Vines and branches erupt from the ground around us, slamming into the building, knocking it down one wall, one story at a time. And still I dig deeper, still I try to find more magic inside me. Bringing down a fortress is one thing. Bringing down an entire realm is another.

I know I can do it. I have to do it. I just have to figure out how Jikan is stabilizing my grandmother’s magic enough to hold Noromar together. Because once I know that, I’ll know how to take the whole damn thing apart.

I close my eyes again, send every ounce of my earth magic into the world around me to try to figure out how he’s doing it. Branches explode from my fingertips, burrowing into the dirt in all directions. Vines and flowers flow from my hair, spreading down to the ground and then out, over the purple dirt, covering the world in all directions with chaos magic. With earth magic.

Withmymagic.

And that’s when I remember. The Bloodletter uses chaos magic, but Jikan uses time magic. He has to be using his time magic to stabilize this entire realm.

So to take it down, I just have to figure out how to blow time itself apart.

111

I’ve Got the (Time)

Magic in Me

The time dragons make a lot more sense now. No wonder Jikan couldn’t afford any tears in time—one too many might break this place apart and kill everyone inside it.

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