Page 47 of Soulmates

“I don’t know about that.”

“Maddox, we all know that. We’ve known that for years” Santiago said.

“Come on,” Maddox said to her and then interrupted Jake before he could agree with Santiago. “Don’t. You are biased.”

Jake just smiled at him with a look that said, Obviously.

“Alright, I’ll bite. How do I do what you’re asking me to do.”

“As I said from the start, it’s all about how you are thinking about magic. You’re not in tune with nature. You make nature come into tune with you. The answer is too simple and too complicated for you to think of it unless you start off your magical education by just trying things out. You ask it.”

“Ask it?”

“Ask it.”

“You want me to ask the fire?”

“Yes. Fire is an element. It’s alive in its own way. You feel it when you use it, right? So it can be part of you as well. I’ve seen mages sing nature into a different shape. Have you ever read a novel where the elves or fae sing the trees into houses?”

“In a way. Elves in stories are often singing spells.”

“Right. They’re having a conversation with nature when they sing. Those stories are rooted in the way we perform magic. But you’ve been taught away from that way of thinking. It’ll make your magic bigger to have both. Make me a fire. Then talk to it. Start in the fireplace if you want.”

Maddox stood, Jake going with him out of necessity, and turned toward the fireplace. He doubted this would do anything at all, but he would try. He’d learned over the past days to take a moment, to center himself and feel his magic core. To not take it for granted.

He thought fire into being. One moment, the fireplace was cold and lifeless, in the next breath there was a fire. He immediately felt the connection in his veins, as he always did when fire was near. This time, he tried to connect back. He pushed a part of himself into the fire and pulled the fire into him. He touched the link between him and the flame. Sat with it. Breathed with it. The fire felt…happy. Like it was dancing. It was made to burn and to eat and to dance. He pushed back with a question. Could you be cold? Could you not burn, just for now? Not for always. Be light and beautiful, but do not burn. He paused and opened his eyes. The fire has slowed it’s movements until it was nearly frozen in place. He reached back out. You can dance up my arm, come up my arm. The fire seemed to like that idea as it rushed out of the fireplace and up his body to the tip of his outstretched hand. Jake shouted his name, and Maddox noticed him pulling at him, but Maddox didn’t stop.

The flames ran up and down him, avoiding Jake, and they did not burn. The yellows, oranges, and reds of the flames weren’t cold or hot; they just were. If you want to burn, go to the fireplace. I will bring you wood. The flames danced around his chest and back in a swirl and then were gone, reappearing in the fireplace.

Maddox opened his eyes and turned to Cricket. “It wants some wood. I promised.”

Cricket’s smile was the biggest they’d seen from him so far. “Then wood it shall have.”

The progress they had made since the fire seemed to stall in the coming days. Maddox grasped, mostly, the idea of talking to nature instead of using it. He loved the back-and-forth he felt with each of the elements. It thrummed in his blood, alive and pulsing with the beat of his heart.

But other than the meditation sessions and time spent outside with Jake, he didn’t think they were any closer to solving the problem at hand: how to transfer a piece of his soul to Jake.

Jake and Santiago seemed to struggle more with the concept of a back-and-forth with their magic. Cricket thought it was partially because he didn’t know how to explain it exactly for their type of magic in the way he could with elemental magic. They had also been trained to use their magic with laser-like precision, whereas Maddox’s was already, by its very nature, softer and more malleable.

Maddox’s frustration about the incomplete bond continued to build, as did his fatigue. Maddox’s eyes continued to brighten as the days passed, which Jake and Santiago weren’t taking well. Cricket had no comment except to adjust Maddox’s potion.

One night on a walk together, Jake commented in alarm that Maddox’s eyes were like a spotlight, and Maddox snapped back at Jake with a wave behind them. “Fireflies!” He apologized immediately, to which Jake just smiled and kissed him. Maddox was convinced Jake was a saint for putting up with his moods.

They sat in the living room surrounded by books, even Santiago looking a mixture of bored and worried, when Maddox found himself asking Cricket, “Why did you stay?”

“What?” Cricket said.

“After you defeated the mage who was messing with the balance, you stayed here,” Maddox said. “You said it was a good place to be with nature and hide your archive. And I know you said it was about the pythons and such. But there had to be other places you could help. You’re powerful. You could’ve gone anywhere. But you stayed. Alone.”

“Moody,” Cricket said. “First, I never said I was alone. I live alone, and I like my solitude, but I have a network of mages I work with and see. I have friends in town and in the forest that I thought you might like to avoid while you emit light out of your face.”

Santiago laughed and gave Maddox an unimpressed look when he glared her way.

“But why here? What’s here?”

“Problems are here, young mage,” Cricket said. “I solve problems for people, communities, land. This swamp is filled with problems caused by humans. Don’t dismiss the pythons. Do you know how much time I spend trying to manage the pythons? They are everywhere. They’ve decimated the small mammals, terrorize the fauna, and generally make a menace of themselves. And that’s just one thing. There are invasive plants everywhere as well.” Cricket seemed to decide whether to continue or not. “And I don’t just stay here. I actually travel quite a bit to other areas when people need help. Or to see my family. I’m not actually a recluse.”

“But Maggie said you wouldn’t come to Reinhold,” Maddox said.

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