she could counter that rather easily. The tentacles were more of a difficulty.
She couldn’t think about Blue, Phantom or even Isai. She had to concentrate very carefully and make no mistakes. Her magic began to twist around Vasile’s. She knew the spells he used, but not necessarily the patterns he wove when creating them. That was the hardest part for her. She closed her eyes to “feel” his magic.
Dark arts were ugly. Vile. The hatred and loathing woven into each strand were difficult to bear. They weighed her down, attempting to steal her spirit, stabbing at her heart and soul. Who could conceive of such malice? She’d always known Vasile was spiteful and mean, that he could be cruel, but she had no idea of the true evil that resided in him. She felt tainted, coated in his malevolence. In the truly immoral code he believed in.
Each dark spell had to be surrounded by her white one—a subtle takeover without tipping the mage off that he was in any kind of danger of being stripped of his power. She closed her eyes, trusting her ability to keep Vasile’s attacks from reaching her while she worked. She went over every line for the first spell that he had wrought. The birds had been first, the rain last. She needed to go in reverse order.
She felt for strands of magic, separating them carefully in order to see how the pattern had been woven. Very delicately, so as not to disturb a single layer, she began to reverse the spell, but kept it contained within the circle of her magic. As each strand was stripped from the one before it, the dark ugliness was infused with light. Again, it was subtle, so there was no vibration to tell Vasile his magic was in danger.
Already, her colors had spread through his grid of defense, moving outward from the path she had opened for Isai to travel unharmed through. Now, it widened, moving through those dark weaves to begin a complete takeover.
Wiping the beads of sweat from her face, she began the second spell, reversing the force of the wind. That would actually be the most difficult of all, not taking the spell over, as weather was always one of her fortes, because Vasile might notice and react before she was ready for him.
Can you keep Vasile focused there without too much danger to yourself? Even as she asked, she knew there was no such thing as turning the dark mage’s attention on Isai without the danger level going through the roof.
No problem, Isai returned without hesitation.
She couldn’t worry about him, not when she had to have the most delicate of touches. He had to take care of himself—which he’d been doing for centuries. He also had to look after the shadow cats. She gave one thought for the injured Phantom and then closed her mind off to everything but finding a way to harness the fierce wind, swallow her brother’s magic, all without letting him see she was no longer in danger from the wind or the rain.
Once again, she studied the weave in the dark components. These were much thicker strands. Each cylinder was fatter at the ends and thinning toward the middle. They spun aggressively toward one another, in a counterclockwise motion. The spinning action made it difficult to find a thread to start with in order to unravel it enough to infuse her own magic. She was patient, watching carefully in order to envision the complicated pattern he had used when concocting the spell.
She had no idea of the passage of time. In the back of her mind, she heard the shrieking of the birds and the sound of their continuous pecking, the drilling of their sharp beaks stabbing repeatedly at the barrier she had formed between them, the cats and her. The tentacles erupting through the ground shoved rocks around, knocking them into the boxlike shelter and the barricade. All the while the wind slashed and hurtled debris at her. The rain sizzled with dangerous intent.
She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Or exhausted. Her arms felt like lead as she once again took a deep breath and began to unravel the strands, picking at them gently until she caught the very end of the weave. Immediately she piggybacked her magic there, doing her best to tone down the bright light so there was no chance that Vasile might see before she could spring the trap.