She starts forward, feet padding down the slope of the bedrock, placing a hand on the wall. “On the other side, the king and queen’s bathing chamber also looks like this.”
Yet her words barely register. My muscles lock up, my mind reeling with a rush of a floral, warm scent, like inhaling a perfume that becomes a drug. It’s not the sickly sweetness of the fae wine, or the brightness of the stars. It is deeper, earthier—balanced and unknowable.
“Avery?”
But I cannot speak, cannot move or even stay with Lila, as my consciousness turns inward, to the genius that lies like a stunned moth at the bottom of a well. When I inhale, the earthy scent pours down that well. It is strong and rounded and natural, like the scent of a lover’s skin, like the damp earth dug to bury the dead. This is life and this is death and the two suddenly seem the same, two halves of one circle, a current that flows into itself.
Hello again,say a thousand voices.
My genius twitches, its wings vibrating. Then it’s snapping to life again, flapping and fluttering up and up and up, the surge of energy so powerful I feel the tingling spread to my limbs, to my fingers and toes, sparking outward, connecting once more to the plane. Sounds and colors and smells flood my senses as I access the plane of magic once more.
“The magic is strange here,” I breathe.
My concentration falls to the floor, and I freeze. My sandal lies across the drain, a whispering blackness under the grate, like a sighing mouth. I step off it. The rush abates.
“There’s something down there.”
“Has something happened?” Lila asks, glancing at the drain, then startles when she looks back at me. “Your eyes—they’re glowing.”
“I…I’m not sure what happened.”
We ascend out of the pool, and I stop short at my reflection, again. Transformed into a creature brimming with power, I stare at the two flames that fill my gaze. An aftereffect of my genius reawakening, perhaps. A slip of control on my fire ability. Blinking only slightly dims the light.
She glances at the sky. “The hour is late. We can return another time.”
My friend takes my hand.
As we wind our way out of the Salon of Stars, I cannot shake the feeling of that magical exhale, that sighing creation that slumbers at the heart of the Pith, which was powerful enough to animate my hibernating genius and set my eyes aglow.
It is something other than Reign magic. Something ancient. Somethingalive.
As we close the door once more, cutting out the light, Lila struggles with the keys. My genius buzzes with the strength of a swarm. All I have to do is think, and a roaring flame erupts from my palm.
It’s as easy as breathing.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lila has just placed thekeys in the niche when there’s a pounding on her door. We share a glance, and then she’s pressing the fabric over the hole and leaning against the wall.
“You answer,” she says. “And do whatever you can to make them go away.”
On the other side of the door stands Carter, in a rumpled shirt, laces undone at the top. The moment he registers it’s me, standing in Lila’s bedroom, his mouth goes slack.
I raise my brows. “So you’re the competition?”
“Avery!” Lila yelps.
I keep the door tucked close to my shoulder. Carter coughs. “No, I—What’s with your eyes? You know what, never mind.” He holds out an envelope. “From the king. He laced it to the Mouth, and it’s addressed to Lila.”
My friend squeaks behind me.
“Is she okay?” Carter leans to the side, but I lean with him.
“Yes, she’s just spent. How’s the king in general? We felt the…” I glance up at the ceiling.
“It’s fine. He found a new outlet.” He shrugs, then departs, and I close and lock the door. Lila comes away from the wall, crossing her arms.
“Was that necessary?”
