If I would feel anything at all? I was feelingeverything, all at once.
Leland jiggled the flask in what was supposed to be an enticing gesture. His fingers were folded around its curves, his hand miming an up and down and sliding motion. And just to get him to stop doing that, I snatched the flask from him.
Clearly, I wasn’t myself. My thoughts were out of control. There was a new, desperate need that worsened every time I looked too long at Leland, and I had to get rid of it.
I took a small sip from the flask, warning with my eyes that this better not be a trick. The bitter taste burned my tongue. I forced myself to swallow it and immediately regretted it. My throat was on fire. It was so bad, I pushed my hand against my chest to keep the moonale from coming back up. Whatwasthis? Jet fuel?
“Your body got too close to magic — a lot of magic — and your blood liked it. Now it’s seeking whatever magic it can find in the ether. Traces, magnifiers. When it searches, it feels like your blood’s being pulled out of your skin. It’s why you felt — ”
Don’t say it, my eyes warned him. I was able to hear my own thoughts now. I didn’t need to be reminded that it had felt like I’d die if he didn’t touch me. There was still an uncomfortable burn in my blood and a warmth on the surface of my skin, but the unmanageable combination of lust and rage I’d felt when I first woke up was fading.
I passed the flask back to him, but he wouldn’t take it.
“I’ll get my own,” I said, holding it out.
“You’ll keep it,” he countered, “until I find a better solution.”
It was probably a sign I was due for another sip, how badly I became irritated, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I decided to empty the flask out on the ground.
Moonale hit the dirt and splattered. Splashes of mud stained my clothes and skin, but I kept pouring, careful to keep the spray away from my shoes.
After a full minute of this, I realized the flask was as full and heavy as when Leland had first given me it. An entire moat flowed around me before I put together that the flask was spelled to refill.
Leland just laughed.
“I don’t — ” I tossed the flask to the ground. “This is really the solution? Me being drunk?”
“Yes. For now. Your blood will burn off the moonale about as fast as you drink it, so you’ll never be drunk. It’s not a cure.Selection will help, somewhat, once you pick a school of magic and get it in your system.”
Rustling from behind one of the otherworldly sized trees stole a second of his attention. I tracked his gaze, but just as soon, he relaxed. The rustling had ended. Perhaps it was only a priestess, on their way to tell the Echelons what I’d done to their forest. That the Goddess had blessed me with as many schools as She had.
“The Echelons . . .” I twisted my mouth to one side. “They’re not going to like this . . . thatIgot all eight schools of magic. And I’m ahalfwitch.”
The face he made was by no means reassuring. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked, a bit like a counselor.
No, not really. Though I could deduce from the results of my Blessing, along with my surroundings, that it wasn’t good.
“After the dark magic tree bowed,” I started, then paused to survey the upheaval, trying to remember, “the ground shook. It was opening. I held on to a root, but then I heard you yell, and I let go of it. I didn’t — ”But what if I did?My fingernails certainly ached like I did, like I was the one who’d opened the earth. “You think I did this on purpose.”
“No,” Leland answered honestly. “At first, yes. I thought you wanted this. It looked like . . .” He exhaled tightly. “It looked deliberate. And, before I came to get you from the human realm, I was told you were dangerous.”
I plucked a wet twig from the ground and chucked it in the deep groove that exposed the creation tree’s roots. This wasn’t the first time Leland had mentioned me being dangerous. He’d also asked me at my house.
In my heart, I never wanted to hurt anything or anyone. But now that I was here, with blood roaring in my legs and nowhere to run, and Leland forcing me to confront, for a second time, if I was, it was hard not to wonder. Was I the reason Helen left us?Was Leland here, assigned to me, because there was something about me to be afraid of?
I picked up another piece of the mess, this one a bark chip, and was about to pitch it in the gouge with the twig when Leland said, “I know you think you’re helping, that you’re trying to clean up, but anything you do right now is going to be misinterpreted. It would be better if you did nothing.”
I let my hand fall without argument, then sighed down at the mud.
“I’ll tell them you didn’t mean to do it,” Leland murmured.
“Will it make a difference?”
Leland looked at me with a pained expression. “You were blessed with eight schools of magic. You could cure the Witch’s Limit, and it wouldn’t make a difference.”
In a way, it was like someone knew this would happen. My Blessing was scheduled early, specifically before the rest of the Echelons woke up, like Jaxan anticipated he’d need time to smooth it over and cover it up.
“Why did they assign you to me?” I asked. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Babysitting? I thought it was because I was a half witch, but . . .” I flicked a clump of mud off my shoe. “Ash wasn’t watched like this. Was she?”
