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“Magic.” I’m breathless when he reaches for my hand. But I hesitate to take it. Instead, I walk to the small house, running my fingers along its coarse wood, and a splinter slips into my finger. I laugh.
“You did all this . . . for me?” I face him.
He dips his chin. I inhale a deep, long breath, taking in the world around me once more. My toushana doesn’t flicker. My pulse slows. The soothing ocean rhythm gently lapping the sandy shore lulls me to a calm I’ve never felt. This isn’t real. But I blink, and my eyes call me a liar.
“Why?” I breathe.
“Magic is unwieldy by nature. It thrives on indecision, panic. You need control, Quell. That’s what it takes to push magic into your blade. I couldn’t think of a better way to remind you of why you’re doing all this.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
He stares deep into me, the etched angles of his face washed in moonlit glow. The boy behind the mask stares back at me, and I search for something to say, but no words come. He did all this. For me.
“Thank you,” I manage. “Those seem like too small of words to explain all that I feel.” My gaze meets the sandy ground, cheeks burning at how honest I’ve been.
“We should practice,” he says.
We move toward a flatter area, and it’s too cumbersome to walk in sand with shoes on, so I go barefoot. He maintains some distance between us, which I appreciate. The last time we were alone together I was a ball of anxiety. But here, with him like this, I don’t think I’ve ever felt calmer.
He tosses my dagger into the sand and steps closer to me, holding up both his hands, palms facing out. “I want to feel your magic course through you. Put your palms on mine.”
I hesitate.
He’s asking me to touch him on purpose. I raise my hands, halting before his, like a sullen glance in a mirror, worried what will happen when our skin kisses. If it’ll unsettle the monster sleeping in my bones. Or worse, if nothing will happen and I thirst more for little touches like this.
This is foolish. I swallow, refusing to look away. I can do this. I can stand here and do this magic and shove off the rest of whatever I feel for him.
I press my fingertips to his, savoring the warmth of his skin. His touch is always softer than I remember.
“You’re trembling.”
I breathe a laugh, unsure of what to say.
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.” I’m afraid of me. His green eyes shine under the glimmery night sky like a boundless meadow washed in sunshine. A place with endless summer where it never rains. A place I would run to if I was brave. Or foolish. I shouldn’t. I won’t.
“Now, the magic,” he says.
I search for my proper magic, a burning deep inside. My pulse ticks evenly, my toushana slumbering, completely undisturbed. I find the warmth of my magic, hot and throbbing, and tighten my core.
“That’s it,” Jordan whispers.
He shoves my dagger into my hands. “Now move it into the blade.”
I urge the burning to rip through my hands. It shoots through me, and the flat on my dagger pulses with light. “I did it!”
Jordan smiles, and rays light up the darkest parts of my soul. I fight the urge to throw my arms around his neck and scream. I really did it. With control. My toushana didn’t have anything to stoke because I was calm.
He settles on the sand beside me and nudges me with his shoulder. “Good job, protégé.”
I nudge him back. “Why, thank you, mentor.”
He reaches for his shoes, and I grab his wrist.
“Stay, please.”
“Sounds like you want to amend our starting over terms again, then?” He plucks a bag of candies from his bag.
