“ ‘Marred by magic,’ ” Micah said. He tapped the corner of his left eye. “Is that what this spot is? Magic?”
“I believe so,” Nero said, and though he despised sitting on floors, he sat across from Micah, just beside the siphon fortis. The cold from the stone seeped through his clothes, chilling him. “My theory is that the Tenebris Incident sent a few small pieces of magic flying, and one of them landed in your eye.”
Said eye narrowed at him. “The Tenebris Incident was ages ago. I’m only eleven.”
“Do you know what a wormhole is?” Nero said.
Micah shook his head.
“Let me explain it this way, then,” Nero said. “A wormhole is like a tunnel. At one end of the tunnel, things can be moving very slow. At the other end, they are moving very fast. So if you go through the tunnel, you can get somewhere far in the future, but you can get there very quickly. Understand?”
It was how he had lived for hundreds of years, though his own Earth had been in the same century as Genetrix’s when he was born. Time did not cooperate between worlds.
“So the magic exploded and went through a tunnel,” Micah said, “and landed in my eye.”
“I don’t know. It’s a theory.”
“And that’s why I have so much magic,” Micah said. “Why my parents were so scared of me.”
“Perhaps,” Nero said. “And perhaps there is a way for you to keep it under control until you are ready for it. Would you like that?”
Micah nodded.
The poor child, Nero let himself think. Teeming with magic, and not a single person in the world could understand it, not even Nero himself.
“Let me tell you,” Nero said, “about a particular kind of siphon that goes on your spine.”
The spine, they thought.
Claudia tapped the vertebrae that stuck out from his shirt when he hunched over. Tap, tap, tap.
The fire was low. He had forgotten to add logs to it, and now the air was so cold, he could see his breath. It was difficult for him to remove himself from these preparations. He had been waiting so long for this night, the night when everything was finally ready. The objects of power in a wide circle in the courtyard, connected by a line of salt. He had gathered them over the past five years, following legends to dead ends, whispers to treasure.
The real treasure, though, ached in his chest. Only an x-ray had revealed it. The doctor had suspected a hole in his heart, and that was, in a sense, what he had found. But the hole had been plugged by something. A piece of shrapnel, he had pronounced it, but Nero had not been near any explosives. There was no immediate danger to his health, so Nero had gone on, short of breath and easily tired, with the fragment in place.
He straightened and pulled his suspender straps over his shoulders again. His sister, Claudia, stood behind him in a smart blouse with a bow in the middle, right above the dip between her collarbones. Her hair was parted on the side and curled at the bottom.
“You look pretty,” he said to her.
“Don’t I?” She stepped away and swayed her hips so he could see her long skirt shift back and forth. “I thought I’d dress up for your first day of eternal life.”
He scowled at her. “You’re dressed for the train and nothing else,” he said.
She gave a small smile.
“And you’re sure you want no part of it?” he said.
“I’ll have an eternity in heaven,” she said softly. “Though I am sad my brother won’t be there to join me. You will still be here on Earth.”
“I don’t believe in heaven,” he replied.
She nodded. “So you’ve said.”
She leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. She smelled of floral perfume. When she pulled away, she still wore that small smile.
The fire crackled in their fireplace as the last of the kindling broke.
The feeling was fire.
When a birch log burned, the papery bark peeled away from the wood and turned to ash. That was what he felt was happening to his skin. Every layer of him—skin and sinew and bone—peeling apart and burning to cinders.
That was only the beginning. Later, in another universe, when he found the words for it, he would call it plunging headfirst into the sun. Hotter than lava, hotter than any heat he knew, and the sensation of twisting away from it, yanking one’s hand off the stove