Magic for a Price: An Allie Beckstrom Novel by Devon Monk

Author:Devon Monk [Monk, Devon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101597255
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-05T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“Done,” Shame panted. Tendrils of smoke rose from the disk in his hand. The dark magic around him reached toward the well with hungry fingers, snapping back before actually touching it.

Shame turned his back on the well with what looked like effort and walked the very narrow glass path that spun out like a crystal brick road over the well to where the rest of us stood against one wall on a wide band of solid wood.

He fixed me with a look. Not a lot of green in that gaze. Just hungry, dangerous blackness. He licked his lips and smiled. “Your turn, Beckstrom.”

I glanced around for Stone. He was pacing behind us nearest the wall, wings up, head down. Snarling at the sounds of the fight in the other room.

“Stone,” I called.

He came to me.

Collins took a step forward too.

“I don’t think there’s room for all of us on that path,” I said.

Collins’ eyes narrowed behind his glasses. He nodded once. “I can cast from here.”

Stone walked behind me as I took the glass path.

I’m not afraid of heights. However, the path was only about a foot wide, made of glass, and the well swirling beneath me was something that Shame had once told me would kill me fast if I ever fell in.

Who designed this thing?

It’s an older approach, Dad said. Originally capped by interlocking wooden boards that could be moved by pulley. That was destroyed in a fire. An artist in the industrial age replaced it with glass and lead. He was experimenting with art, magic, and the possibility of creating a public feed from the well, much like the networks we now have.

Wow, ask a question and get a history lesson.

The path seemed to be getting narrower the closer I came to the center of the room.

It doesn’t, Dad said. But you are close enough.

Good, because I was starting to remember that I completely sucked at the balance beam back in grade school.

Be careful, I said to Dad, but make it fast.

I will make it right, Allison. No matter how long that takes.

He stood beside me at the front of my mind. Even though neither of us were physical in any real manner in my head, I got the sense that if he’d been physical, he’d look like he’d just been hit by a bus. I sensed pain, breaks, and bruises from him.

One of the things about sharing a mind with someone was that they pretty much knew what you knew. He felt my awareness of his pain. Then that pain was gone, replaced by a convincing illusion of him standing strong, perhaps bored, but plenty able to handle magic.

You don’t have to put on a show for me, I said. I know what magic is doing to us.

Did I raise you to give up so easily?

I’m not giving up. I’m stating the facts.

You don’t have the facts, Allison. Not all of them. Not enough of them. And I would appreciate it if you were quiet so I could concentrate on this spell.

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