My hand snaps up without hesitation as do all of my Chosen’s hands.
“Actually,” Tawv interjects. “In order to leave, you have to have permission from the ruling body.” He gestures toward the side door. “I wouldn’t be in a hurry to ask her any favors,” he adds.
“Okay then,” I tell him simply, and he narrows his eyes at me, suspicious of my lack of argument.
“No, I’m saying you physically can’t leave; the barrier won’t allow it unless she grants you access to it,” Tawv reiterates, his face filled with concern.
I stare at him for a moment, reading the worry on his face, and decide to let him in on our possible advantage.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I claimed your barrier when I came through, so I think we’ll be fine,” I explain, my eyes filled with reassurance and confidence.
“That’s not possible,” Tawv argues.
“Saw it with my own eyes, bud,” I counter. “We all lit up like supernovas and…”
I trail off, not wanting to mention about the thing that happened with the rune on our palms and how I drained my Chosen dry, doing whatever I did to the barrier. I know Tawv took us to go see Getta in the first place, and he might be Bond magic friendly. But I’m taking Getta’s warning seriously to keep our mouths shut about this to everyone. I freeze when something dawns on me. I hurriedly play back that moment in my mind again and add the soundtrack of Getta explaining how it all worked.
“You can pull and give magic at will to each other. Each member of your Chosen will be able to share their abilities when this rune is activated.”
Tawv says something to me, but I can’t focus on what past the ring of realization that’s happening in my head right now.
Holy shit, could that really be it?
I turn to Ryker, my eyes filled with exhilaration and shock. “I think I know how we can fix my dad.”
His eyes snap to mine. “What?” he asks, his tone just as stunned as mine is.
Tawv is still going on about something, and I cut him off. “Okay, yeah, we’ll do that. Um, we gotta go...nap. Yeah, slept like shit last night, so naps for all. Let’s put a pin in this and pick the discussion back up later. Cool? Okay, cool.” And with that, I turn around and bolt for the door.
27
Isprint for our rooms, and it doesn’t take long for the guys to be right on my heels.
“Vinna, what’s going on?” Ryker asks as he pushes to catch up with me from behind.
“I’m all for a good chase, but this vague-dashing is getting old,” Torrez grumbles.
“I’ll explain when we get to the room. We don’t need any extra ears hearing,” I tell him over my shoulder, and thankfully, everyone keeps their questions to themselves until we get to the room.
Chosen and Shields pour through the door to our suite, and as soon as they shut the door behind them, I call up a barrier to keep anyone from listening or looking in. The yellow-orange barrier coats the floor, crawls up the walls, and colors across the ceiling. As soon as we’re encased, questions come firing my way.
“Okay, hold up,” I order. “I’ll explain.” I wait for everyone to quiet, and then I take a deep breath and start pacing as I explain.
“Siah, when we were driving to Adriel’s cave compound, you told me about how lamia are made.”
“Right,” he agrees, his tone perplexed.
“You said that not everyone can do it, because you have to drain the other person of their magic without overloading yours and killing yourself, and then you need to feed your magic back into the person without draining yourself too much, which would also result in your death.
“Yes, that’s right,” he confirms.
“Well, when Adriel tried to turn Vaughn, he didn’t have enough magic to complete it. That’s probably because Vaughn is a Sentinel, and if his source is anything like ours, it’s massive. It would take a fuck-ton of magic to complete the process, and Adriel didn’t have that even on his best day. But guess who does?” I ask them.
I’m too excited to wait for anyone to guess, so I hurry and solve the mystery. “We do,” I tell them like a magician that’s setting up a mind-blowing trick.
“Wait. What?” Becket asks.
“Getta said that when we activate this rune”—I hold up my hand and point to the six diamonds in a circle on my palm—“we could share magic; we can pull from each other or push it into each other. That means that we could send the fuck-ton of magic that my dad needs to complete his turn using this.” I wave my hand at all of them and watch what I’m saying soak in.
