Magic to the Bone

Zay turned to look at me so fast I thought his neck was going to snap.

“Sweet hells, Zay. I was joking,” I said. “Joking. What is going on in that head of yours?”

Nola’s voice called out. “Allie, Zayvion. Breakfast.”

Zay looked down at the floor and rubbed at the back of his neck. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him embarrassed before. “Sorry. That was funny,” he said unconvincingly. “Let’s go get some coffee.” He pulled into his jeans and shirt, then escaped the room without looking at me.

Weird. Weird. Weird.

I tied the robe closed and tucked my hair behind my ears. Maybe I’d been onto something just then. Maybe my father had been out to control all the magic in the world. He already owned patents to most of the systems that made magic available. So what else was there to control? Who else was there to control?

I thought about Cody. I thought about him pulling magic through me, like I was a flesh-and-blood conduit for it. No one should be able to do that. I shouldn’t have been able to do that.

And I certainly shouldn’t have been able to heal him.

Were there other people who could do things with magic that they shouldn’t?

A shiver ran down my arms and the nauseating pangs of panic rolled in my belly. I’d been in so many bad situations lately, even the hint of something going wrong put me full into fight-or-flight mode, and it was exhausting. I shook my hands to loosen my shoulders and neck, and took a few good breaths to clear my head.

Coffee first. Then, if I still felt like it, I could panic.

I walked out of the room and made my way to the kitchen and the low sounds of unfamiliar voices.

Nola, Zayvion, and Cody were all in the kitchen. Zay stood at the stove, drinking from a coffee mug, and looking calm and unperturbed as always.

The unfamiliar voices were coming from a small TV set on the counter. Right now it was some woman talking about foot fungus.

“I’ll get you some food,” Nola said. “Why don’t you sit next to Cody.”

I looked over at the kid. His blond hair was damp and brushed down tight against his head. He’d obviously just taken a shower. It looked like Nola had found a spare pair of sweats and a flannel shirt for him. He was about Nola’s build, but I did a quick reassessment of his age. Slight of frame and delicate features, yes, but not because he was a kid. I’d put him in his mid-twenties, maybe even early thirties. His head was bent over the kitten in his hands. He completely ignored the bowl of cold cereal on the table in front of him, and, as far as I could tell, everything else.

“So your name’s Cody.” I sat in the chair across from him where I could keep my eye on Zayvion. “Remember me?”

Cody looked up from the kitten and smiled a bright, lopsided smile. “Pretty colors,” he said. He held up his hand and waved it in the air like he was pushing finger paints around. He frowned when nothing happened.

“There’s no magic here, Cody,” Nola said, and it sounded like she’d been saying that for a while.

Cody stopped waving and put his hands back around the kitten.

“Cody?” I said. “Do you remember me helping you? Do you remember talking to me down by the water?”

Cody started rocking in the seat of his chair.

Oh. I looked over at Nola. “I didn’t know,” I said.

She nodded. “Well, it should make it easier to narrow down where he came from. I can’t imagine someone isn’t looking for him.”

“I still think we should check to make sure he didn’t escape from a penitentiary,” Zay said.

He pulled a couple pieces of toast out of the toaster, dropped them on a plate, and layered a thick wedge of cheese between them. He walked over to the table and sat down next to Cody, across from me. Good. Now we could both keep an eye on each other.

“Penitentiary?” Nola asked.

“Zayvion thinks he might have gotten in trouble with the law.”

Nola placed a plate of homemade bread, butter, cheese, and apples in front of me. “I’ll get you some oatmeal,” she said.

“Don’t bother. This is perfect, thanks.”

She moved over to the stove, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to me.

“What kind of trouble do you think he was involved with?” she asked Zayvion.

Zay chewed, and slurped coffee. “Forgery. There was a high-profile case a few years back. A young man who committed a string of forged magical signatures. Covered up some pretty big Offloads, Proxy abuses, blackmail, and embezzlement. Landed him in prison.”

“Was he mentally challenged?” Nola asked.

Zay shook his head. “If he was, it was never mentioned in the news articles. Still, there were rumors that once he was out of the public’s eye, the people whom he had indicted before he was sentenced dealt out their own kind of justice.”

“They mentally damaged him?” she asked. “How is that possible?”

“Tried to kill him, but were not successful. It’s hard to kill someone with magic. Takes an incredible amount of power, and intense focus and control.”

“And the price is too high,” I said.

“What’s the price?” Nola asked.

Questions like that made me realize she really did live in a world without magic. “Death. If you take a life, you have to give a life.”

“Oh.” Nola looked over at Cody, who was still rocking.

“And,” Zay added, “despite all those risks, they apparently didn’t want to get their hands dirty by killing the old-fashioned way.”

“Do you really think he might be the same person?” Nola asked.

We all looked at Cody, who rocked faster and hummed.

“They say he was a genius,” Zay said. “An artist who could manipulate magic and make it become anything he wanted it to be.”

“Nobody can make magic into anything they want,” I said, hoping it was true. “There’s a limit to what magic can do, a limit to any user’s ability.”

Zay shrugged. “Some say magic isn’t as cut and dry as people think. It’s only been in use for what? Thirty years?”

“Isn’t there a name for people who are naturally talented at magic?” Nola sat at the table. “I heard it’s rare. Aren’t they called Servants or something?”

“Savants,” Zay and I said at the same time.

Cody stopped rocking. He looked up at each of us, his blue eyes wide, frightened. Then he dropped the kitten next to his cereal. “Kitten likes milk. See?”

Kitten did indeed like milk and went to town, greedily lapping it up from around the floating cereal.

“Hmm,” Nola said. “It might be easy to find out where he came from, but I’m not so sure it will be as easy for you to get him back there.”

“Who said we were taking him anywhere?” Zayvion asked.

“I do,” I said. “I think he needs to go back to wherever his home is.” Wherever he’s safe, I thought.

“And if I disagree?” Zay said. “How are you taking him without a car?”

“I’ll drag him in with me to the police, and let them take care of him.”

Nola held up her hand. “Wait. The news is back on. This is what I wanted you to see.”

I glared at Zay and he looked at me, unperturbed. But when I heard my name on the news, I turned to watch.

It is strange to hear your own name on the news. I suppose people might think it’s an exciting thing, but really, the news mostly covers tragedies, scandals, and misfortune. Any time your name is associated with one of those things, you were in a world of hurt and probably didn’t want the whole world to know about it.