The dragon in me snapped to attention. I let him leak into my stare, narrowing my eyes until the world sharpened and her outline crackled with blue aura. My fingers curled, nails not quite claws, but enough. "You come near him for any reason except to help, and you’ll see what a real extinction event looks like. Bryce will be anchored to me and his mother and no one else. Are we clear?"
Vivienne’s lips peeled back, showing her teeth. "Duly noted." She didn’t back down, though. "Remember, when the time comes, you’re going to need me."
I stared for a minute, then turned and walked away.
Back in the living room, Krystal watched me, searching for a clue. I shook my head.Not now. The tension in her jaw eased a little, but not much.
Aurelia appeared at the edge of the rug, clutching a mug of herbal sludge and a roll of gauze. "We need to siphon off theexcess," she said. "Tonight, and probably every night for the next month."
Krystal pulled Bryce into a sitting position. His head lolled, but his breathing had evened out. "Is he going to be okay?"
Aurelia knelt and brushed a strand of hair from the boy’s forehead. "He’ll live. The problem is, there’s no road map for this. I've never heard of it."
I felt the weight of every ancestor in the room, pushing down hard. "Let’s do it," I said, and nodded at Vivienne, who lingered at the edge like a vulture in designer boots.
The three witches set up a triangle around the coffee table, Bryce at the center. Aurelia’s instructions to Krystal and me were brisk. "Don’t break the circle. Don’t speak. And above all, do not let go of his hand."
Krystal shifted next to me, her hand tight on Bryce’s wrist. I laced my fingers through hers, anchoring both of them with all the muscle I could muster.
Vivienne lit a trio of candles, muttering in Latin, then drew a chalk line around the perimeter of the table. Eleanor, still pale, took up the third point in the triangle, her hands trembling, refusing to meet my eyes.
The siphoning started small, a kind of vibration in the bones, a hum that built under the range of hearing. Then the candles guttered, and every shadow in the room pulled inward, sucked toward Bryce like he was a black hole. A ripple of power bent the table’s legs. My skin prickled.
Aurelia called out the cadence, "Now. Now. Draw. Hold." Each word ratcheted the pressure higher until the static in the room made my teeth vibrate.
From Bryce’s chest, a thread of light emerged, pure gold at first, then shot through with bands of cobalt and violet, then green, then every color at once. The three witches worked in sync, hands weaving and coaxing the thread outward. The air got thick and tasted like iron filings and burnt honey.
The energy formed a visible stream, pouring into a glass sphere Aurelia held between her hands. The sphere filled, pulsed, then overflowed, forcing her to scramble for a second. Sweat dotted her brow, but she never let her focus waver.
Vivienne’s movements were surgical, her eyes never straying from the dance of magic. Eleanor, though, was coming apart, her lips bloodless, her arms shaking so hard I worried she’d shatter.
Then Bryce screamed. Not like before, not the high-pitched wail, but a deep, guttural sob that nearly buckled me. He looked right at me, then at Krystal, and it broke something in my chest.
Krystal squeezed his hand and leaned in. "You’re okay, baby. We’re here."
The words steadied him. The pain was visible, but the worst of it faded. The threads thinned, then snapped back into his chest. The candles extinguished at once.
For a second, there was only the sound of three witches panting and the low whimper of a boy who’d seen infinity and didn’t want to go back.
Aurelia set the now-glowing spheres on the table and backed away, hands up in surrender. "He’ll sleep now. But we’ll need todo this again. Every day. Until the reservoirs are low enough that he can contain them himself. He hasn't had a lifetime to learn how to control this."
Vivienne nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave the spheres. She looked like a starving dog watching someone plate a steak.
Eleanor collapsed into the armchair, head in hands. For the first time, she seemed smaller than her shadow. "This is all my fault," she said, voice breaking. "The block must have transferred to him. I did this."
Aurelia crossed to her, hand on her shoulder. "Nobody could've predicted this."
Eleanor didn’t look up. "I could've. I should've."
I looked at Krystal. She was crying. Silent tears, sliding down her cheeks, pooling in the collar of Bryce’s shirt. I reached for her, held her, and she collapsed into my arms.
We stayed like that for a long time, the two of us, plus the sleeping boy and the new constellation of magic orbs on the table.
Eventually, Aurelia gathered the glass spheres and secured them in her velvet bag. Vivienne excused herself to take a phone call, but I caught the look she gave me as she left. The cold calculation, the anticipation of what she’d do next.
Krystal wiped her face with the heel of her hand and kissed Bryce’s head. "Thank you," she said to no one in particular, or maybe to all of us.
I squeezed her shoulder. "We’ll figure it out."
