Page 42 of Soulmates

They sat there for a long time, breathing in and out in time with each other. Not moving. Just sensing. Maddox wasn’t sure how successful they were in finding the souls, but he couldn’t deny the closeness he felt to Jake in just breathing air with him in the silence.

Cricket declared them done and stood, telling them to do it again before they went to sleep. He certainly had a way about him. Abrupt and dismissive one moment, lecturing or storytelling the next. Maybe it was all the solitude.

Cricket sent them outside for Maddox to get a feel for the surrounding nature while Cricket read through what they found that morning. Santiago joined Cricket, more interested in books than Maddox had ever seen her. But then, these differed from any books they’d ever had access to.

Maddox and Jake went to the back of the house. A dock jutted out above slow-moving water, an airboat floating next to it. Cypress trees surrounded them, and Maddox could see Mangroves along the edges of the water. The air, heavy with humidity, nearly suffocated him in his first few breaths. The sounds of birds calling to each other, insects chirping, and creatures rustling the heavy greenery that seemed to explode out of the ground everywhere they looked all led to a feeling of pure, untamed wilderness.

Cricket’s house sat on the edge of a river that bent so sharply they couldn’t see very far in either direction. The opposite bank sat maybe thirty yards away, and it was impossible to tell the depth of the water—brown and green and smelling faintly of decaying leaves.

Their surroundings were stunning and harsh all at once. Maddox crouched, momentarily forgetting his attachment to Jake, who grunted and crouched with him.

“Sorry,” Maddox muttered and dug his fingers into the dirt at his feet, the weeds and sand and damp fallen leaves covered the ground around his hands. Jake said nothing, probably to let Maddox do his “earthy thing,” as Jake sometimes called it.

Maddox closed his eyes and reached out with his senses, much more successfully than his meditation session earlier. The flora was everywhere. Under his hands were root systems for so many trees and plants he couldn’t follow any one specific root to its source. The cypress felt different from the others, as if each root was just waiting for its chance to burst from the earth to join the rest of the tree. The only thing he’d ever sensed similar to it was while tending lily bulbs. They always wanted to explode too.

There were so many insects near them as well. Bugs wanted two things: food and mating. These were no different. They had more than enough food to go around, the decay providing unlimited sustenance. He decided not to follow them to their mates, though maybe he could learn something useful about mating, he thought with a small laugh. He stood, stiff from crouching longer than he meant to, and turned to apologize to Jake. But Jake pulled him into his arms and kissed him long and deep.

“What was that for?” Maddox asked.

“You’re amazing. I love watching you do that.”

“Bond with the earth?” Maddox smirked.

“Something like that. What’s next?”

“Want to go out on the dock?”

“Sure.”

They sat at the end with their legs crossed in front of them, both judging this to be a place where one does not dangle their feet over open water. Maddox leaned his head against Jake’s arm. “I love this place,” he said.

“Me too, actually, and I’m a little surprised,” Jake said.

“You said you sensed something. What is it?”

“I don’t really know. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s surrounding us. Not just right here but this whole place for miles and miles. It’s under us, I think. I can feel it like…like it’s a flat disc of magic right under us. Is that earth? I’ve never felt the earth before.”

“No, it’s not the earth. I feel the earth and something like what you are describing too. I don’t know what it is, but it’s powerful. And it is under us and around us. Cricket might know.”

“Probably does. Might even tell us.”

“Ha. Maybe.”

“Why don’t you rest for a minute before we go back in? I’ll keep you safe.”

“I know you will. But Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I’ll keep you safe too, right?”

Jake smiled down at him. “I do know that. Close your eyes.”

Chapter 27

Maddox lay curled on his side with his head in Jake’s lap. Jake had always marveled at how Maddox could fall asleep anywhere, but lately, how quickly he fell unconscious scared him. Another reminder of the peril they were in. There were no step-by-step instructions on how to deal with their situation, only hints and cryptic tales in those crumbling books. Based on some of the illustrations and stories, Jake could understand how the practice had fallen out of favor.

No one liked permanence anymore. Like the rest of the modern world, mages wanted freedom and fluidity and movement. Forward progression over all else. Neither Jake nor Maddox had ever felt that way. Maybe that was part of why the exchange was possible. Jake and Maddox never craved solitude. At least not from each other. And neither minded standing still. They loved learning and personal growth but never at the cost of someone else. Despite being raised to conquer their corners of the world, neither of them had big career aspirations. Maddox just wanted to study magic forever. He would love a life like Cricket’s, though perhaps with a few more people in it than Cricket appeared to have. Though, for all they knew, they were interrupting Cricket’s upcoming rave.

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