Ruthless Magic by Megan Crewe

Author:Megan Crewe [Crewe, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Another World Press
Published: 2018-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Rocío

“Finn!” Prisha cried out.

I spun around, my legs wobbly from all the adrenaline that had been coursing through me. Finn sprawled on the ground at the base of the wall, his face ashen and his body limp.

¡Dios mío! I dropped to my knees beside him. A piercing chill gripped my chest.

Not him too.

Prisha knelt by his other side and set her hand on his forehead. I touched his wrist. His skin was clammy, but a pulse fluttered against my searching fingers. His chest rose with a halting breath.

He was alive. Alive and not dying, just fainted, I guessed from the strain. I sat back, trying to gather myself. How could I help him?

He needed me. But it was suddenly hard to think as I looked at him lying there. I’d hardly noticed it happening, but Finn’s smiles and jokes and the honesty behind them had opened up a hopeful space in me that now felt painfully empty.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Prisha muttered, looking sick. “Trying to take them all out at once—that was insane. He could have killed himself.”

“He could have killed all of us,” Judith said, but she sounded more frightened than accusing.

The ache that had spread through my joints with my repeated castings condensed into a sharp pang behind my ribs. Finn had done it because I’d been busy reviving Mark, as well as I could. And now Mark was gone. To be burned out or to die?

Was the Confed going to take Finn too? Every second he stayed unconscious, fear clutched me tighter.

I grasped his hand, even though the movement hurt the stump of my little finger—the stump he’d sealed. If I could just find the words that would wake him up—

His eyelids jittered and then blinked fully open. He gazed at us staring down at him.

“I’d better not be dead,” he said, his voice rough, “because the two of you are definitely not allowed to be.”

Tears sprang into my eyes. I had the urge to throw my arms around him and hold on until he couldn’t doubt how much I wanted him here, making those jokes, smiling his smile—until I’d made up for every moment I’d shut him down or pushed him away.

“You’re perfectly alive,” Prisha said. “No thanks to you. How about you hold off on any more building-shaking castings for another year or two?”

Then her gaze darted up and caught mine. For just an instant her face darkened. That twitch of a frown held enough animosity that I rocked backward on my heels, my fingers slipping from Finn’s.

He didn’t belong with me. He didn’t even belong in my vicinity, outside of the Exam. She knew that as well as I did.

“I got you all out, didn’t I?” Finn said, wincing as he tried to push himself into a sitting position.

Prisha caught his shoulder to help him up. He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. She set her palm over his and murmured a numbing ’chantment.

His headache was back. So

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