My left hand was white and black, the bars of a prison, bands of ebony ringing each joint, the flesh between pale as death. My left hand felt numb, cold, dead. A memory, slight but clear-like a faraway radio tune- came to me. Of Zayvion holding my hands.
And then he had kissed both of my palms. The electric sensation of his lips on my skin made my knees weak.
Oh.
I glanced over at Zayvion.
But I did not see Zayvion standing there-or rather I saw him in a way I never had before.
Even though he was just over six feet tall, Reveal gave him another half a foot, made him appear wider at the shoulders, thicker through the chest and thighs. More than dark, he was a blackness. His skin flickered with blue-tipped black fire, radiating a cold deadlier than the icy air.
Beneath the night-sky flame of his body was something that resembled glyphing.
Spells in ebony, silver, and coal carved elusive against his skin, even with Reveal. His eyes burned Aztec gold shot through with sharp cracks of obsidian.
“What are you?” I whispered.
My words were like a soft breeze, stirring the flames against his skin so that they shifted and flared blue, indigo, black. He reached for me, and I raised my hands to hold him off.
He touched my right shoulder, and the familiar heat and mint of him washed through my body. He Grounded me, easing the ache of the magic I held.
It felt wonderful. It felt right. And I knew instinctively that this was the way magic was meant to be used.
“Allie,” he said, and it was Zayvion’s voice. Straining to stay calm, but still him, still a man. “Your dad isn’t here. We need to go now. Come with me.”
His words were sweet, seductive darkness. I wanted to walk to him, fall into him, let his darkness fill me.
I took a step back, and his hand fell away from my shoulder. “I can’t. I have to see.”
“Allie.” He looked past me, looked at the watercolor people who were closing in, still slowly, too slowly. If these watercolor people were like the ones outside the coffee shop, as soon as they got close enough, they’d start moving fast-too damn fast.
And I was pretty sure Zayvion could see them. Wasn’t that interesting?
The flames against his body washed blue, indigo, black over the silver glyphs of his skin. “Hurry.”
I knelt where my father’s body should be, pressed my fingertips through the standing water until I touched pavement. I whispered another mantra while a car honked and blinding headlights swerved around us. I opened my mouth and breathed in, getting the smell, the taste of the rain, the pavement, car oil, dirt, on the back of my palate.
I sifted scents for my father-searching for the notes of leather and wintergreen. I smelled all the common odors of the city-the chemical tang of cars and oil and waste. And I smelled the strangely antiseptic odor of falling rain. Beyond that, the stink of diesel, the rubber of tires, the heavy pine of Zayvion’s cologne, and my own sweat mixed with the cheap soap I’d used in the shower this morning.
But I did not smell my father. Not even a hint of him.
“Now, Allie.” Zayvion wove a glyph-something that was in the Shield family but twisted toward the center in a way I had never seen before.
He pulled magic from the stores deep beneath the city, and it flickered like electric ribbons up into the invisible glyph in front of him, filling it in until I could see the glyph too.
Magic is fast. Too fast to see until it has been cast.
Well, normally that was true. Apparently when I was using Reveal, I could see magic while it was being used.
How cool was that?
Zayvion glanced down at me. The flames over his skin had gone bloodred, tipped with a silver so dark it hurt to look at. I didn’t know if he was trying to keep from casting a spell or getting ready to Shield the hell out of himself.
I stood. Rain and magic dripped from my fingertips and swirled in metallic colors, joining the stream of water pouring into the storm grate. Magic rushed up into me, through me, from deep below the earth, hot and fast, while I remained cool and calm.
“Can you see them?” I asked.
“Get in the car, Allie,” he said.
“Can you see them?” I asked again.
I really needed him to say yes, to tell me that I was not crazy, not losing other parts of my mind besides my memory. I really needed him to say, yes, there are a bunch of hollow-eyed see-through people marching our way.
“Allie-”
I blinked rain out of my eyes. That was all the time they needed. The watercolor people broke forward, moving fast, so fast that I didn’t get my hands up in time to cast anything.
Zayvion, however, did.
The watercolor people hit the Shield he cast around us in an explosion of sparks that would have made a special-effects director proud.
They all stepped back.
Then one of them-a man in clothing that looked like it belonged to the previous century-extended his hand toward the Shield.
Zayvion’s Shield, a ten-foot-tall and -wide lattice of blue glyphing that strummed with power, stretched out and out toward the man’s hand. The Shield distorted until the edges became a fine mist, and finally the vibrant blue magic became a watercolor fog that streamed toward the man’s hand like smoke from a chimney.
The man opened his mouth wide, wider, empty black eyes unblinking, and inhaled. The mist that had just been a Shield spell flew forward and filled his mouth. He swallowed in huge gulps, throwing his shoulders back and arching his spine as he swallowed and swallowed.
All the watercolor people moaned, low, hungry, like a hard wind blowing over an empty grave. They wanted that. They wanted magic.
They rushed.
Zayvion drew a second glyph.
I was faster.
I traced Hold spells with both hands (yes, I’m spellambidextrous; have I not mentioned that before?) and threw them at the mob ahead and behind us.
Magic licked up my bones, pushed against my skin, and unleashed into the spell.
The watercolor people froze.
They did not look happy about it.
I, frankly, was hella impressed.
“Good,” Zayvion said, like I was a pupil who had just figured out how to concentrate so that a Light spell will reduce weight, not illuminate.
“Now get in the car.”
I had to give the guy props. He didn’t sound the least bit concerned that my spell was dissolving into mist even faster than his had. Didn’t sound worried that it too was being devoured by our ethereal company.
And, as far as I could tell, he didn’t seem bothered by the large crowd of new watercolor people who were trudging in slo-mo down the streets toward us.
I was pretty sure they weren’t just stopping by to cheer on their home team.
“Car, Allie. It’s safer.”
I didn’t move. Call me crazy, but I was not going to leave him out here to fight these things alone. Hells, for all I knew the car wouldn’t do me any good. These things walked through walls.
