I already felt my skin getting warm, and, without the cuffs I’d burned through, there was nothing to stop me from flickering right before their eyes, fading away until I became fully translucent. To make matters worse, etherizing seemed to be happening faster now. When I’d caught Leland with Vyra, outside the bookshop, I’d hadat leastfive minutes. Last night, when I saw him with Case, I hadn’t even had time to run.
I’d spent long days in the library, researching what was happening to me and trying to figure outwhy.
Leland was right. Only the Goddess etherized like this. There were Invisibility spells cast by Enchantresses, but not like this. Invisibility spells were sudden. The slow fading of my corporeal form, as if sucked away on a gasp of wind, was what the Goddess did to shed Her witchness.
Only She hadn’t been seen on land in three hundred years, because after the last Curse, the Witch’s Limit, Her magic stopped being strong enough for Her to transition.
She’d been trapped in the clouds ever since.
It didn’t make sense that I could etherize when She couldn’t, and there was no doubt in my mind that if I ever went fully into the ether, She wouldn’t be happy to see me there.
Something tickled my ankles.
Rayne and Leland were talking, but I didn’t hear. I couldn’t move my feet. My shoes were connected, and furiously trying to kick my feet apart wasn’t doing anything to loosen them. I hoped it was the effort of trying to stand and not the burn of jealousy that was rapidly heating my skin and making me drip sweat on the table.
“Everything okay?” Leland asked.
I shook my head abruptly as Vyra glared at him. “I’m burning. I . . . I think I’m going to — ”
I stopped myself before I said too much, then glanced below the table to see if I could figure out what was staying my feet. I frantically inspected my running shoes, but as far as I could tell, they looked the same as they had earlier. No obstructions. No zip ties fastened to bind my feet together. If they’d been tampered with, no trace was left behind.
Clumsily, I swung my legs up on an empty seat and started pulling at them.
“I can’t move my feet,” I said, short of breath. Streaks of sweat ran down my chest as I frantically clawed at my laces. I needed to move my feet or I was going to disappear in front of everyone in the full, bright light of the cafeteria.
“Vyra, let her go,” Leland said.
At her laugh of delight, my ears rang, my blood urging me to rip out her throat and throw it back at her.
“What?” she asked. “If she can’t handle this, she’ll never survive first year. The only witch at an academy with no spellcasting magic — what a joke.”
“Vyra,” Leland warned.
Sutter buzzed back to her.
My feet sprang apart, and I ran.
Flames roared through me as I propelled myself out of the cafeteria, fixing my sights on the massive spiral as I sprinted through what felt like an entire convention center. I glanced at my arm and panic ripped through me. It had diminished to near colorlessness. The etherizing had already started. I was fading.
There was no explaining this to anyone who caught me in this state. No saying it was a trick of the light or a game of shadows. It was me. Flickering. Flickering. Flickering.
I was at the base of the spiral when I could no longer feel my legs. My breaths were gasps. I hurled my hand at the first doorknob I saw, and it slipped through my fingers — the transparent nothingness of them.
I slammed myself into the door to force it open — and as subtle as still air — I passed through the obstruction.
This wasn’t flickering. This wasn’t translucence. This was worse.
I was gone.
* * *
Leland’s room.
I floated to the foot of his bed as soft music with the staticky sound of an old radio pulsed from his sound bar. There weren’t words, only a slow rhythm that made me think of thick raindrops sliding down my window.
Moments later, someone was on the other side of his door. I heard the knob turn, the door creaking open, then softly closing.
“Ember?” he called out tentatively.
