I felt what I thought were Rhu’s hands on my leg, and saw a small glow, my leg suddenly feeling much better.
As the rumbling around them slowly diminished I heard Rhu fumble for something. Seconds later a light shown in the space between as he activated a flashlight at his belt. The cool blue light illuminated a smooth spherical metal surface around them. I watched as he reached out wonderingly, allowing his fingers to trail across the metal for a moment before yanking his hand back in pain, a soft curse escaping his lips. Was that why his hands had felt so warm moments ago?
“Are you okay?” he demanded, running his eyes over my body. Just to check for wounds, of course.Right. We’d go with that.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“No clue. Are you alright? There’s blood.” He held his hand up, bloody smears showing across his fingers.
“My leg. I—I thought something—” I looked down at my leg. Blood stained my pants and leg, but when Rhu knelt and examined it, there was only a long scratch and a nasty bruise.
“I think you’ll be okay. Did you do this?” he asked, gesturing at the metal and stone sphere. “You’re Earth Mageia, right?”
I shrugged self-deprecatingly. “Yeah. Kinda what I do.”
I reached past Rhuyin and touched the metal. The walls flowed like water as I created an opening in the metal shield I had summoned to protect us.
And protect us it had. What remained of the hallway was dark, except where the flashlight shone. The walls were leaning at odd angles and parts of the floor gaped away into darkness, the dust floating thickly through the air, making Rhu cough.
Chapter 14
Rhuyin
“We need to get out of here,” Rhu said. “Take my hand.”
I reached out for the Mageia, ignoring the shock that ran through my hand as they touched. Even though I was expecting it this time, the strength of it was still surprising. Luke gripped my hand tightly and I helped him pick his way through the shambles of the office building. I reached back and gave the other man a hand as he stepped across a hole in the floor.
“—find Elex. He’s going to be shitting bricks.”
I froze, looking down at our joined hands.
“Wait,” I said. Luke froze.
I slowly released Luke’s hand and stepped back. Luke had been taking in the destruction of the building but dragged his gaze back to me when I spoke.
“Say something,” I said.
Luke looked at me curiously. I saw his lips move, but heard nothing, though I could read his lips and knew he had said the word “something”. Slowly I reached out and took Luke’s hand in his.
“Say something again,” I said, deliberately looking away from the Mageia.
“Something again,” the Mageia said.
My gaze shot back to the younger man’s face.
“You said ‘something again’,” I said.
Luke started to nod, then said, “How did you know that?”
It was his turn to raise an eyebrow at the me and I couldn’t keep the grin from his face.
“I heard you,” I said.
“You heard me?” Luke echoed, obviously confused.
I paused then shook my head. No, that wasn’t right, not exactly.
“Not with my ears,” I said, struggling to find the words to describe what I was experiencing. “It’s not that I can actually hear what you’re saying. It’s like… I canfeelthe vibrations on my skin as you’re talking. When we touch, it’s really amplified.”
