“I got it, Darius. You can stop repeating that now.”
Fuse—
I tilted my head, staring at the creature in the circle. That thought had reverberated from it. The demon had cut it off, and now it was either shielding its thoughts or not thinking at all, but it had been there.
Fuse.
Fuse my magic.
“How?” I asked it, not meaning to. Then, hoping for another slip-up and a free lesson, I asked again, “How do I fuse my magic?”
Its smile stretched across its face, and not in the theoretical way, like in books. This was inhuman and horrible, showing black fangs and a thin tongue behind them. “Come with me, and we will show you.”
“How can you show me if you don’t have the same type of magic?” I asked, raising my hands to the invisible wall of the circle. The cold bit into my skin. The feeling was unpleasant, but if I had to be honest, no more painful than the fire. I realized now that my hatred of the cold was related to the fear of what it would do to my fire.
I needed to push beyond this; I just didn’t know how.
“How are we coming, Penny?” I asked, giving in to the cold. Letting it rise up through me like I’d done earlier that night.
“I think… I think I can create a kind of bridge, but only for a moment.” She exhaled noisily. “You’d have to kill the demon within a very short amount of time. If you don’t succeed, he’ll be banished. We’re not trying to banish him, right? We’re trying to kill him? Because banishing would be very easy.”
“Kill, yes.” I grimaced at the demon’s laughter. “Sooner the better.”
“You have the capacity for greatness, but you are not there yet, heir-child.” It laughed again.
“I hate you.” I closed my eyes as the cold overcame me. Suffocated me.
The candles around us dimmed and then went out.
A shower of bright white light shone down on us. Darius had turned on the warehouse lights.
Everyone, including the demon, squinted and raised their arm against the unexpected glare.
“There goes the romantic atmosphere,” I said as the sludge rose up within me. Freezing my limbs, like at the mage’s house. This time, though, I was prepared.
With everything I had, I pulled at the fire deep in my gut as the circle throbbed even colder against my hands, inside me.
“This has to happen now, or he’s gone,” Penny said. “He’s nearly got the power he needs. He’s draining it out of the mages.”
“Told you so,” I muttered to the mages, wrestling with my fire. “Never trust a demon.”
Thoughts of my mother floated through my mind. Of Callie and Dizzy’s blind faith. Of No Good Mikey and the gang, welcoming me into the neighborhood even though they gave side-eyes to most everyone else. My thoughts even lingered on Darius and his soft caresses. Darius, who had tried his damnedest to protect me, and look after me, when he ignored most everyone else.
I welcomed the flutter in my heart this time, reminding me that I was human. That this cold power would not steal the parts of me that could feel, any more than the fire had.
The heat crept up, encircling the cold. Blending. But not fusing.
For now, it would have to do.
“Go, Penny,” I barked. “Darius, take down the mages. Callie and Dizzy, work with Penny in any way you can, and protect Darius from the mages’ attacks.”
“You can do this, Reagan,” Callie said.
“Go!” I shouted.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ifelt the strength from Penny’s magic, threading light and buoyancy through the demon’s dark, dank magic. Cracks formed, shattering the cohesiveness of the pyramid of the spell. The circle flickered, one moment a self-imposed cage with a one-way trip to the underworld, and the next, nothing more than some lines and characters drawn on the concrete floor.
