I was taking it out.
Moving fast, both for Nik’s sake and to stay ahead of my own fear, I plunged my hand into my father’s magic and started ripping out everything I’d put in. His fire burned me as I pulled, and I heard Yong roar, but though it must have felt like dying all over again, he didn’t fight back. He just stood there and let me suck him dry, pulling out his fire in huge handfuls that I then turned and shoved into the spinning maelstrom of the arena as hard as I could.
I was terrified it wouldn’t be enough. Unlike the DFZ, my father wasn’t a spirit. He wasn’t even a full dragon. I could kill him and still not have what I needed to put us over the line.
For all my worries, though, I wasn’t the only one who’d worked on this plan. Nik had done his part, too, and done it well. So had my father, and the DFZ, and Dr. Kowalski. Between all of us, we’d made this the biggest fight night in DFZ history. A wild success, everything the Gameskeeper could have wanted and more, which meant we had to be close to the limit of what the circle could hold. As I’d just told Kauffman, all spellwork had limits, and my sudden addition of an entire dragon—even a significantly reduced one—was more than the arena could take.
I felt the break before I saw it. One second I was feeding magic into the chaos hand over fist, the next the whole cyclone of power jolted. The magic was still spinning, but the circle it was spinning inside was no longer large enough to contain it, and like a wheel grown suddenly too big for its wheelhouse, it burst free, exploding outward in a violent torrent of raging, uncontrolled power.
Straight into me
As a lifelong magical failure, I’d been on the receiving end of more overloaded spells than I could count. It was always terrifying and painful, but none of those previous botches came anywhere close to the tsunami of backlash bearing down on me now.
As it landed, I had one of those strange, calm moments when you know you’re absolutely screwed, but defeat is so inevitable that it feels like a waste of time to get upset. I was far more worried that all this exploding magic might end up killing thousands of spectators in addition to myself. True, they were terrible people who’d shown up to watch Nik get eaten, but I still didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths.
Thankfully, since the Gameskeeper had already centered most of the power on Mad Dog, the majority of the destruction looked like it would happen in the middle of the arena, away from the crowd. I was telling myself to be happy that at least I hadn’t accidentally become a mass murderer in my last seconds when I heard someone shouting.
“What are you doing?” My father’s face appeared in front of mine, his smoky features so faint I could barely see them. “We’re not done! Grab it again quickly, before he takes it back!”
For a horrible second, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I felt it. I wasn’t having a moment of calm before the end. The Gameskeeper had caught the exploding magic just before it spun out of control. The power was far too big for him to control safely without spellwork, but he was still wrestling it down, sucking the magic back into himself while the crowd watched in confusion. He’d already wrangled most of it. A few more seconds and he’d have the rest back in hand as well, which meant I’d drained my dad for nothing.
Screw that! With a scream that came from the soles of my feet, I reached with everything I had to grab back the magic I’d just sent flying. The Gameskeeper roared in reply, a terrifying cry of divine anger, but for once his nature was working against him. He was the god of the arena, and taking on opponents stronger than yourself was what arena fights were all about. He’d named me challenger, and I accepted it, clawing the roaring magic from his fingers and back into myself.
Where I had no place to put it.
This was the place in the original plan were the DFZ was supposed to swoop in and save my poor mortal soul. But I didn’t have the DFZ anymore, and what room I did have was rapidly burning up. I was going to pop like a balloon if I didn’t find somewhere to put all this power fast. Thankfully, my salvation was already tied to me.
“Opal!” my father’s shade cried, his voice sounding a thousand miles away as he reached out his near-invisible hand where our thread was still floating, silver and whole.
He didn’t have to say more. Thanking my god for making me practice this so much, I turned and pushed all the magic that was slamming into me straight into him. It ran down the silver thread like lightning, which was a problem because I was only supposed to send him fire.
Just as I started to panic, though, I saw that it didn’t matter. Unlike the first time in my apartment, my father was no longer embers, and he’d been practicing too. He’d been right there with me for all of it, learning as I learned. The moment I sent the magic at him, the smoldering embers of his fire grabbed it and burst back to life, the growing flames hungrily consuming everything I threw into them.
At least, I think that’s what happened. I was working so fast to keep the magic moving, I couldn’t focus on anything else. All I knew was grab and push, grab and push, faster and
