When Sang walks onto the field, I’m ready to use my magic.
All of it.
“Hey,” he says, dropping his bag on the ground. A wool scarf is wrapped around his neck, and the tips of his ears are pink. He looks so comfortable, so cozy, like a mug of hot chocolate or my favorite blanket. The perfect person to curl up with beside a fire.
I clear my throat.
“How are you feeling today?” he asks.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about how Paige could have been hurt so much worse, about how lucky we got. I don’t ever want that to happen again.” I pause, look out across the field toward the trees I’ve been trying so hard to reach in our drills. “Before Mr. Hart died, he told me I’ll only ever gain full control over my magic if I master it. I want to let it all out and hold nothing back. I need to know what I’m actually capable of.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing. Have you been holding back this whole time?”
“Not on purpose. But I think I’ve been holding back for so long that I don’t know how not to do it. I don’t know what it feels like to use all my magic because I never let myself get close. And I’ll never learn to control it if I don’t even know what it feels like.”
Sang nods. “That makes a lot of sense.” He looks around the field. The mountains in the distance are capped in white, as if their peaks have been dipped in frosting.
“Would you walk me through it? How it feels for you when you use all of your magic?”
He looks surprised, but he nods. “Sure, of course.”
“I’d like that.”
His eyes land on mine, and for one, two, three seconds, neither of us looks away.
I force my eyes to the ground and take a deep breath. There was nothing in that look.
Sang reaches his hand out to me, and I step back. “You’ll feel it more if you take my hand,” he says.
Hesitantly, I step forward. When I put my hand in his, he laces his fingers through mine. For a moment, I’m frozen, staring at our intertwined fingers. His skin is rough, indicative of all the hours he spends in the dirt, and blue smudges stain the edge of his hand. My heart races. I force myself to focus on our drill, because that’s all this is: training.
“Okay?” Sang asks me.
I nod and swallow hard. “I’m ready when you are.”
He closes his eyes, and I do the same. I instantly feel it when he calls his magic to the surface, the calm I’m so used to by now drifting through the air, moving up my arm, settling in my core.
I breathe deep.
Wind starts to build around us, Sang’s scarf dancing in the current, brushing against my skin.
My heart slows.
“There’s a moment,” Sang says, his voice even, “when your magic waits for you to make a choice. It pulls you along like the current of a river, your back in the water, eyes closed, arms stretched out, palms toward the sky. The current gets faster and stronger as it rushes toward a waterfall. And there’s a moment when the river stills, gives you control, and asks, ‘Are we going back the way we came, swimming against the current? Or are we falling over the edge, trusting the water below to catch us?’”
My eyes stay closed. I nod along with his words, understanding exactly what he’s saying; the image is so vivid I can almost feel it. His calm, the absolute control he has over the power inside him, hangs in the space between us. It hovers in the air like a mist of perfume.
“How do you make yourself fall over the edge?” I ask, my voice so quiet I’m not sure he hears me.
“You inhale all your fear, all your worries, all your hesitation,” he says, breathing in so deeply I can hear it despite the wind. The calming magic that flows from him pauses at the top of his breath, waiting for his answer.
I take in a deep breath with him.
“On your exhale, you let it all go—all the fear, all the tension you’re carrying in your body—until all that’s left is you and your magic. You surrender to the current and drop over the waterfall, knowing you’re safe. It’s so much harder to swim against the current, to try to go back. Falling is the only way forward.”
Sang exhales, and I do the same. His entire body relaxes as magic rushes through him, pours into the air, wraps itself around me.
The column of wind he’s summoned takes off for the trees. I open my eyes and watch. It doesn’t go far, only into the first few rows, but we’re in winter; come spring, Sang will be able to drop a windstorm over this entire field if he wants to. The trees sway side to side, and then the wind dies out and they rest, motionless.
My fingers are still laced with Sang’s. I pull my hand back, ignoring the way the cold air invades the space previously kept warm by his skin on mine.
Ignoring the way I want his warmth back.
“Your turn,” he says, bringing me back to the field.
I look at the evergreens in the distance and keep the image in my mind when I close my eyes. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
I can do this. It’s just a little wind.
Magic rises up inside me, and instead of focusing on holding it back, I focus on the task. I picture the evergreens swaying in a breeze. I imagine myself floating down the river, water at my back and sky above me.
I picture myself in total control.
The wind gets stronger and stronger around me, then pauses. My magic waits. I’m at the waterfall.
I inhale, and as my chest rises, I acknowledge my fear. I see it. There’s so much of
