I took the stairs a little faster. If I only had five minutes before I went off to fight a storm of wild magic, I wanted to spend those five minutes with Zay.
I hesitated at the door to his room. Thought about knocking. Knew it would only hurt more when he didn’t answer, so instead, I just opened the door.
The light was dimmer in here, making the strange-colored clouds hanging outside in the darkness seem even more eerie.
Two beds. The one I’d been in was empty and had been remade.
But in the other bed was Zayvion. I walked over to him, trying to be quiet, and feeling stupid about that. I wanted him to wake up. So why was I being so careful not to disturb him?
I walked up to the head of the bed.
Even sleeping, he was a handsome man. In the low light, his skin looked like burnt bronze, his hair a dark tangle of midnight. I brushed my fingers through his hair, then down his cheek. Finally, I brushed my finger over his lips, hoping he could feel my touch.
The cool, steady exhalation of his breath against my fingers gave me hope. He was still breathing. On his own. There was very little medical equipment hooked up to him, an IV, and something that ran under his blanket, to attach to his chest. His skin was warm to the touch.
He looked alive. My sleeping beauty.
But I knew he was not in there, not in his body. And no matter how long his body breathed, without his soul, his spirit, or whatever part of him that had been shoved into the gate between life and death, I knew he would never wake up.
I didn’t know how long they would keep him like this. How long until they gave up on him.
Shame said it was possible to open a gate as soon as magic normalized. I didn’t know if that would help Zayvion find his way home, but it was all I had to hope for right now. And if that didn’t work, then I’d find something else that did.
But first we had to take care of the storm.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this,” I said to Zay. “You still owe me that horses-on-ice-skates thing. I plan to collect.” I brushed my fingers across his lips again, thought about kissing him.
“Just don’t die,” I whispered. I concentrated on projecting my words, my thoughts, to him though my fingertips. Willed them into his mind, his heart. “Don’t give up on me. We’re going to St. Johns to take care of the storm. And after that, I am going to find a way to get you home. A gate. If you see a gate open, all you have to do is step through it. I’ll be waiting on the other side.”
I knew this wasn’t a fairy tale. Still, I bent, kissed him on the corner of his mouth, ignoring that, yes, he was motionless, unresponsive, not even a flicker of his awareness stirring at my touch. There wasn’t any magic in the kiss, but there was something just as strong: a promise that we were in this together.
I straightened and the crystal in my pocket clunked against the side of the bed. I dug it out.
It was warmer, pinker, the shadows dusty blue. It was filling with magic, though I didn’t know how it could collect it when even the best magic user couldn’t tap into the cisterns and networks right now. Maybe the crystal had a default mode that allowed it to collect whatever scraps of magic it could find to fill the emptiness.
Maybe it could help Zay. I thought about leaving it here. The crystal might act as a beacon for him.
My dad, who had been wisely silent this entire time, brushed the backs of my eyes gently.
The crystal is passive, he said. It holds magic and gives it up when tapped correctly. It will not call a soul, save a soul, or hold a soul. It carries magic, deep, natural, but it works no magic on its own.
I didn’t want to listen to him. I was heavy into hating him for what he had done to me. But his thoughts were weary, as if he had lost the hope of making me believe him, but tried anyway.
Will it hurt him if I leave it here?
No, but there are those within the Authority who may