herself. I loved seeing her like this, knowing what she had endured.
There was a thump from the kitchen followed by the clatter of the oven door shutting. A frown crossed me, and I turned to Ceri as she prompted, 'Are you ready to try again?'
Setting my sock-footed feet firmly on the floor, I nodded. Quick from practice, I reached out with my awareness and touched the line out back. My chi filled, taking no more or less than it ever did. The energy flowed through me much like a river flows through a pond. I had been able to do this since I was twelve and accidentally threw Trent into a tree at his father's Make-A-Wish camp. What I had to do was pull some of that energy out of the pond and lift it to a cistern in my mind, so to speak. A person's chi, whether human, Inderlander, or demon, could hold only so much. Familiars acted as extra chi that a magic user could draw on as his or her own.
Ceri waited until I gestured I was ready before she tapped the same line and fostered more into me. It was a trickle instead of Algaliarept's deluge, but even so, my skin burned when my chi overflowed and the force rippled through me, seeking somewhere to puddle. Going back to the pond and river analogy, the banks had overflowed and the valley was flooding.
My thoughts were the only place it could settle, and by the time it found them, I had made the tiny three- dimensional circle in my imagination that Ceri had spent most of the afternoon teaching me how to craft. Shoulders easing, I felt the trickle find the small enclosure. Immediately the warm sensation on my skin vanished as the energy my chi couldn't hold was drawn into it like mercury droplets. The bubble expanded, glowing with a red smear that took on the color of my and Al's aura. Yuck.
'Say your trigger word,' Ceri prompted, and I winced. It was too late. My eyes met hers, and her thin lips twitched. 'You forgot,' she accused, and I shrugged. Immediately she stopped forcing energy into me, and the excess ran out in a brief spark of heat back to the line. 'Say it this time,' she said tightly. Ceri was nice, but she wasn't a particularly patient teacher.
Again she made ley line energy overflow my chi. My skin warmed, the bruise from where Algaliarept slapped me throbbing. The amperage, if you will, was a touch more than usual, and I thought that it was Ceri's not-so- subtle encouragement to get it right this time.
'Tulpa,' I whispered, hearing it in my mind as well as my ear. The word choice wasn't important. It was building the association between the word and the actions that were. Latin was generally used, as it was unlikely that I would say it accidentally, triggering the spell by mistake. The process was identical to when I had learned to make an instant circle. The word tulpa wasn't Latin—it hardly qualified as English—but how often was it used in conversation?
Faster this time, the energy from the line found my enclosure and filled it. I pulled my gaze to Ceri and nodded for more. Green eyes serious in the dim light from the heat lamp on my desk, she returned it. My breath seeped out and my focus blurred when Ceri upped the level and a flash of warmth tingled over my skin. 'Tulpa,' I whispered, pulse quickening.
The new force found the first. My spherical protection circle within my unconsciousness expanded to take it in. Again my focus cleared, and I nodded to Ceri. She blinked when I gestured for more, but I wasn't going to let Al knock me out with an overload of force. 'I'm fine,' I said, then stiffened when the bruised skin around my eye throbbed, burning with the sensation of a sunburn even through the pain amulet. 'Tulpa,' I said, slumping as the heat vanished. See, I told my frazzled brain. It's an illusion. I'm not really on fire.
'That's enough,' Ceri said uncomfortably, and I pulled my chin up from my chest. The fire was gone from my veins, but I was exhausted and my fingers were trembling.
'I don't want to sleep tonight until I can hold what he pushed into me,' I replied.
'But, Rachel…' she protested, and I raised a hand slowly in denial.
'He's going to come back,' I said. 'I can't fight him if I'm convulsing in pain.'
Face pale, she bobbed her head, and I jerked as she forced more into me. 'Oh God,' I whispered, then said my trigger word before Ceri could stop. This time I felt the energy flow like acid through me, following new channels, pulled by my word rather than finding its way to my bubble by accident. My head jerked up. Eyes wide, I stared at Ceri as the pain vanished.
'You did it,' she said, looking almost frightened as she sat cross-legged before me.
Swallowing, I pulled my legs under me so she wouldn't see my knees tremble. 'Yeah.'
Unblinking, she held her cup in her lap. 'Let it go. You need to recenter yourself.'
I found my arms were wrapped around myself. Forcing them down, I exhaled. Letting go of the energy spindled in my head sounded easier than it was. I had enough force in me to throw Ivy into the next county. If it didn't flow back to my chi and then the line using the gently seared channels that Ceri had been burning through my nervous system, it was really going to hurt.
Steeling myself, I set my will around the bubble and squeezed. Breath held, I waited for the pain, but the ley line energy smoothly returned to my chi and then the line, leaving me shaking from spent adrenaline. Enormously relieved, I brushed my hair out of my eyes and put my gaze on Ceri. I felt awful: tired, exhausted, sweaty, and shaking—but satisfied.
'You're improving,' she said, and a thin smile crossed me.
'Thanks.' Taking my mug, I took a sip of cold coffee. She was probably going to ask me to pull it off the line by myself next; I wasn't yet ready to try. 'Ceri,' I said as my fingers trembled. 'This isn't that hard compared to the benefits. Why don't more people know this?'
She smiled, her dusky shape in the shadow of the lamp going sage looking. 'They do in the ever-after. It's the first thing—no, the second thing—that a new familiar is taught.'
'What's the first?' I asked before I remembered I really didn't want to know.
'The death of self-will,' she said, and my expression froze at the ugliness in how casually she said it. 'Letting me escape, knowing how to be my own familiar, was a mistake,' she said. 'Al would kill me if he could to cover it up.'
'He can't?' I said, suddenly frightened that the demon might try.
Ceri shrugged. 'Maybe. But I have my soul, black as it is. That's what's important.'
'I suppose.' I didn't understand her cavalier attitude, but I hadn't been Al's familiar for a millennium. 'I don't want a familiar,' I said, glad Nick was so distant he couldn't feel any of this. I was sure if he was close enough, he would've called to make sure I was okay. I think.
'You're doing well.' Ceri sipped her tea and glanced at the dark windows. 'Al told me it took me three months to get to where you are now.'
I looked at her, shocked. There was no way I could be better than her. 'You're kidding.'
'I was fighting him,' she said. 'I didn't want to learn, and he had to force me into it, using the absence of pain as a positive reinforcement.'
'You were in pain for three months?' I said, horrified.
Her eyes were on her thin hands, laced about her teacup. 'I don't remember it. It was a long time ago. I do remember sitting at his feet every night, his hand soft on my head while he relaxed as he listened to me cry for the sky and trees.'
Imagining this beautiful wisp of a woman at Algaliarept's feet suffering his touch was almost too much to bear. 'I'm sorry, Ceri,' I whispered.
She jerked, as if only now realizing she had said it aloud. 'Don't let him take you,' she said, her wide eyes serious and solemn. 'He liked me, and though he used me as they all use their familiars, he did like me. I was a coveted jewel in his belt, and he treated me well so I would be useful and at his side for a longer time. You, though…' Her head bowed, breaking our eye contact and pulling her braid over her shoulder. 'He will torment you so hard and so fast that you won't have time to breathe. Don't let him take you.'
I swallowed, feeling cold. 'I wasn't planning on it.'
Her narrow chin trembled. 'You misunderstand. If he comes for you and you can't fight him off, make him so angry that he kills you.'
Her sincerity struck me to the core. 'He's not going to give up, is he?' I said.
'No. He needs a familiar to keep his standing. He won't give up on you unless he finds someone better. Al is greedy and impatient. He'll take the best he can find.'
'So all this practice is making me a more attractive target?' I said, feeling sick.
Ceri squinted apologetically. 'You need it to keep him from simply stunning you with a massive dose of ley line force and dragging you into a line.'
