House Of Gods 9 - Samantha Snow Page 0,3

whether his body felt heavy or light. And for a moment, he felt like he was at least several thousand people at one time. But then, slowly, he began to feel his body around him again, and he opened his eyes and waited for things to come into view.

He was sitting on the ground, looking at those around him. His head hurt like the worse migraine he could imagine. He heard people talking to him and asking him if he was all right, but his tongue felt heavy and swollen in his mouth, so he didn’t answer.

“It worked,” he heard someone say. “The humans are leaving. They look like they’ve all just woken up from a daydream and are going back about their normal business. Brandt did it; the mortals have forgotten the existence of magic.”

Everyone was smiling at him, and he tried to smile back, but his lips felt numb, and his head felt heavy. He looked up at the baby still sitting on the bed and noticed how creepy it looked, not in an ugly sort of way, but more in an unusually wise way as if it knew more than he did.

They helped Brandt to his feet, and he felt arms wrap around to hug him and tucked his face into the dark, soft hair by his cheek that smelled pleasantly calming like fresh rain. When his vision was finally clear and the ringing in his ears abated to let sound come in normally, he felt much less fuzzy and less dizzy than before. He could see, and hear, and stand without a problem now. He even still felt the thrum of his power in his veins, which was a good sign. The only thing that still troubled him was confusion.

“Are you okay?” Brenna asked for the seventh time since he still hadn’t answered her yet. She smiled and kissed him and held his face in her hands. “Brandt, answer me.”

He looked first at her and then at everyone else in the room in turn, and then looked back at Brenna again. “Who are you?” he asked.

Brenna felt all of the blood rush out of her head and drop to her feet like lead. It felt as if the whole world—all of the worlds—had suddenly collapsed around her and fallen from the universe completely.

“Who are all of you?” Brandt asked as he looked around the room.

The others glanced between themselves, visibly as confused as Brandt was about why he wouldn’t know who they were. Everyone looked upset, but Brenna looked as though she would die.

Lopt was the first to regain his composure and address Brandt. “Do you not know who we are?” he asked him.

“No.”

“None of us?” Lopt asked.

“No.

Brenna’s legs gave out from under her as she crashed to the floor, putting her palms against the wood floorboard as she tried to breathe.

“It’s okay,” Cai said as he knelt down beside her. “I’m sure it’s just a glitch or a temporary side effect of using so much of his power at once.” He turned to Tara in desperation. “What happened to him?”

“How am I supposed to know?” she said.

“Ask Tannin.”

Tara turned and stared at the baby, who was now looking sleepy and rather content. “He doesn’t know,” she said as she turned back around to answer Cai.

“He truly doesn’t know, or he’s lying about not knowing?”

“I think he truly doesn’t know,” she said.

Jerrik came to help Cai lift Brenna from the ground. “It’s going to be fine, Bren,” he said. “I’m sure this is just like a magic hangover or something. He exerted a lot of magic just then. It’ll just take him a few days to recover, but I’m sure he’ll be all right.”

Colby gave Jerrik a questioning look as if he were trying to figure out whether or not Jerrik knew what he was talking about. But when he saw the worry on Jerrik’s face, he knew that he was just pretending in order to keep Brenna from being swallowed up by despair.

CHAPTER TWO

The paradigm of magic shifted back almost instantly. As soon as the mortals forgot that magic existed, their use of it ceased completely and the realm of Earth was no longer depleted. The powers came back to everyone in the apartment, except for Abigail, who had never lost hers to begin with. Brandt had spared her memory, and so she still had magic at her disposal. They all stretched out their powers as if they were test driving a new car, just