I simply call to it with my newfound voice, and it answers.
The smile widens on my face when I feel the familiar warmth beneath my skin. A second later, my palm goes slick. I let out a whoop when the gold streams out of my hand and starts to gild the floor, merging with the frozen puddle before me.
I look up at the timberwing with a triumphant smile. “I did it!”
The beast blinks at me, and I don’t even mind that it doesn’t look impressed, because I’m too excited that I finally managed to use my magic on command while fully conscious and in control.
I immediately celebrate by yanking off my other glove. I press my palms against my leggings, my shirt, my socks and boots, elated, ecstatic, feeling like for the first time ever, I cancelebratemy own magic.
When I’m gilding my gloves, a clap sounds behind me, and I whirl around in surprise. Slade’s there, leaning against the wall of the cave, looking offensively sexy. No person should be able to look that effortlessly good in the light of dawn.
But I’m sure glad he does.
He’s wearing unlaced boots caught over low-slung pants and a wrinkled shirt with its sleeves shoved up his forearms. He’s not even wearing a coat, like he rushed out before pulling one on.
He stops clapping, his hands slipping into his pockets, while the grin on his face and gleam in his eye make my stomach flip. “Well done, Goldfinch. I knew you could do it.”
CHAPTER 41
AUREN
“Try and pull it backin,”Slade tells me.
His back is resting against the cave wall—a wall that’s now gilded in sweeping waves that mimic the veins of fluorescence surrounding us.
Argo, Slade’s timberwing, is here too, just as he has been for the last four days. He never approaches or growls, but instead keeps a keen eye on me and my gold—or acts completely bored by my presence.
My brow furrows in concentration from where I sit in front of a rock formation at the back of the cave, my gold cascading over the dark stone like a slosh of paint dripping over the top. I try to pull it back into my hand that rests on the pointed tip, but no matter what I do, the gold keeps spreading down.
“I can’t,” I tell Slade with frustration, my fingers stretched and bent over the stone, glutinous gold dripping from me.
My hand is shaky, the rest of my body tired from the strain of control I’ve been practicing non-stop for several hours already. Since Slade first followed me and saw me finally have a breakthrough with my magic a few days ago, I’ve been dragging him up here from dawn until dusk to help me practice.
I’ve learned a lot in a short amount of time. Like the fact that I can’t makenewgold during the night. That power is still purely tied to the day. Yet Icancontrol any gold around me during nighttime, just like I did back in Ranhold.
“Alright, take a break. Breathe.”
“I don’t want to take a break,” I say stubbornly, my mouth pinched as I stare at my ornery gold. “I want to get this.”
Slade drags a foot up to lean an arm over his knee, looking casually sexy from where he sits across from me. “I know you do. And you will. You’ve done amazing work already learning control. Take a breath, and then try again.”
Nodding, I relax my strained fingers and shake them out a bit as I let out a centering breath. Every day, Slade has been helping me master the new facets of my magic. I quickly realized that my confidence boost of calling up my gold-touch again was just the first step. I have so much more to learn and experiment with, and a lifetime of old habits and thought processes to undo.
Instead of suppressing my power, I’m trying topushit. To figure out exactly what I’m capable of. But I’m decidedlyincapable of bringing my dripping gold back up to me yet and undoing what I’ve gilded.
But I’m determined to learn.
Slade’s been having me do things step by step. For the first couple of days, I practiced simply calling my magic to gold-touch certain things in a controlled way, and then to essentially turn it off like a spigot so I don’t gild anything I don’t want to.
It’s not easy. I struggle with both aspects. But I suppose that’s to be expected after so many years of uncontrollably gilding anything that my bare skin came into contact with. I’m still careful about keeping covered during the day, just in case.
But...a flicker of golden light lives in the back of my head with this unbelievable possibility—that one day, I can be in complete control.
It’s what spurs me on.
That I can one day walk barefoot in the sunlit grass, without the risk of spreading metallic death beneath my heels. That one day, I can bare my arms and legs to the cast of the day, with no fear of what might brush up against me. That I can eat and drink from dawn till dusk and actually taste my food, without the bitter taste of metal sliding down my throat. The possibility that I can go without gloves, that I can touch and feel and hold whatever I want, without worry, no matter the time.
I want to get to thatone dayso desperately.
