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“They both just harped on intentions. That unless I’m hoping to combine with another’s magic, I have to picture an objective and let it flow from me.”
She puts her hands on her hips, looking every bit her eighteen years. “Okay, so, set some intentions. Hit me with some magic!”
I glance around the empty meadow, happy for the absence of an audience for what will undoubtedly be a spectacular failure. Luckily for us, this meadow is far enough removed from the city to afford me the privacy of my inadequacy.
Setting my intentions sounds easy in the abstract, but my brain will not settle enough to do it. Where do I even begin?
I do not want to bleed Tulip and try to conduct a brutal scrying of her life force. We’ve already frosted over portions of the meadow, and trying to stack ice on ice is useless to me.
That leaves shadows.
I remember the shadow-snake that wrapped around my arm during the Wendigo battle. It felt affectionate toward me, and I was sad to see it go. I look down at the arm it wrapped around as if it were a gauntlet and try to picture it there on my skin again.
Forcing my mind to empty of all thoughts but that shadow, that snake who saved my friends and me and brought me comfort, I do not break my gaze from my arm.
An unnatural coolness washes over me, and darkness envelops my feet and the ground below me. The meadow looks dimmer, a curtain of shadows wrapped around us. From a heavily shaded spot under a tree, I spy a rolling cloud of shadows stretching toward me.
Around it, shimmering dots of black seem to float effortlessly through the air, almost imperceptible in the fog of the spell. I call the shadows and the specks of black towards me in my mind, willing them to fall under my command. They pulse with life, doubling in size as they travel to me.
I outstretch my arm, and a single tendril of shadow breaks from the cloud, slithering across the ground at a breakneck speed. Before I can blink, the shadow hooks onto my forearm, pulsing and wrapping its length around my skin.
I forgot Tulip was here with me for the briefest moment, but her horrified face has brought me back to myself. She gapes at the shadow-snake around my arm and then points to my feet.
Looking down, I appear to be turning into a shadow myself. I attempt to move my leg, to kick it from the shadows, and I am greeted by nothing but a translucent outline of what was once my appendage.
I yelp, matching Tulip’s stricken expression. “Where are my fucking legs?” I shout as much to Tulip as to myself.
She throws her hands in the air, “How am I supposed to know, Viola?”
I glare down at the shadow-snake as if this trick of the light can understand what I’m saying. “Where are my legs, shadow-snake?”
I’d swear it tightened around my arms as I spoke to it.
Before I can continue to disappear into a shadow of my former self, a bright light fills the area. I wince, closing my eyes to the onslaught. I feel the shadow-snake loosen around my arm, fighting against the invasion of light.
When I can brave opening my eyes, I am pleased to see my legs are back and looking very solid once more.
Lifting my head, my eyes lock with the bright green eyes of Zeph Nightroot.
He looks positively giddy.
“You almost turned yourself into a shadow,” he says, stifling a laugh.
I swat at him with my snake-clad arm. He looks down at it, his eyebrows raised. “New pet?”
The shadow-snake loosens its grip around my arm ever so slightly. “I guess so,” I say, turning my arm over to look at it from all angles. “Why are my legs back?”
He waves his fingers at me teasingly. “Light magic. I told you I was your counter. You’re lucky I saw you out of the window. I’m not sure how I could’ve brought you back if you went pure shadow.” He gestures to the Palace, which I didn’t even realize was visible from where we stand, embarrassed that I was caught.
To camouflage my burning cheeks, I examine the shadow-snake in front of my face, effectively blocking Zeph’s view of me. It isn’t quite solid, but its body is opaque, and it even has a pointed head like the snakes I would find in the woods. It’s as if the shadows have compressed themselves and become tangible by my sheer will.
“Then why is he still here?” I ask, not taking my eyes off my new companion.
“He?” Tulip says over Zeph’s shoulder. She looks shaken up by the spectacle of magic.
I raise and drop a single shoulder. “Feels like a he.”
Zeph ruffles his sunset-colored hair, chuckling to himself. It’s a masculine sound rumbling deep within his chest. “That shadow is clearly still here because your intentions are still set on it. You don’t want it to leave.”
