He couldn’t help grinning in reply. “Is there a reason I’m staring at an old building?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“Absolutely.” She nodded seriously but her lips twitched up at the sides.
“Today?”
“Sure. In fact….” A small group who had been walking through the gardens, moved past and away. “Now is good.”
Ethan realized she’d been waiting until they were alone, and he raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to be doing anything likely to get me arrested?”
Kay wrinkled her nose up at him. “Would that be a problem?”
He swallowed a slightly choked laugh. “Nope. I just like to be prepared.”
Kay grinned. “Nothing like that. Not today anyway. Today, I wanted to do a Shadow Walk with you. It’s like what you do when you’re Healing, but outside your body. I thought it might be good to show you a bit more of what you can do.”
Ethan couldn’t decide whether to laugh or take her seriously. He still only half believed what he’d seen the previous day. “Sounds like voodoo to me,” he admitted eventually.
“Sure. Everything we don’t understand sounds like voodoo.” Her smile faded. “In all fairness, this is a bit like voodoo.” Kay bit her lip. “Look, I want to be honest. There are better people to show you how to do this. If you don’t want to try it today, that’s fine.”
She leaned back against the wall and watched him seriously, waiting for his response. Did he want someone else showing this to him? Whatever it was? No, he absolutely did not. He returned her serious look. “I don’t want anyone else. I trust you.”
“Do you? Really?” She looked skeptical—as she should. He didn’t know why he’d said it when trust was the one thing he wasn’t sure he could ever offer again.
He looked down into her eyes, searching for the truth. “This isn’t a game, right?”
Kay took his hand, lacing their fingers together. “If there is one thing about me that you should know, it’s that I hate games.” She smiled. “Well, other than rugby.”
Ethan chuckled, letting the idea sit for a moment. The feeling of her hand linked through his grounded him; it gave him a feeling of stability that he hadn’t had for far too long. “Okay,” he agreed. He could trust her in this.
“Alright then. What we’ll do is project our Shadows. It’s that energy you can feel swirling in your belly. Everyone has it; it's part of who we are, part of our soul, but only Shadow Weavers can manipulate it.”
“My soul has Shadows? That sounds pretty dark.”
“Sure, everything has Shadows; that’s what I’m going to show you. But it's not dark. It's not good or bad any more than the shadow your body casts. It’s just energy, which can be used in good or bad ways.”
His hand tightened reflexively around hers. “So, if I understand this, you’re going to take my soul out of my body?”
Her eyes stayed serious. “Not all the way, but, yes, partly. I can’t let you do it by yourself because that’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous how exactly?”
“There is a very slight possibility that a person can get lost if they lose control of their Shadows,” she replied. “If you let go and send yourself completely out... that would be bad. Little wisps of your soul, your inner self, would float, too fragile and tangled to be able to come back to your body.”
“I can’t decide whether this is all a prank and you’re filming me to upload to the internet later, whether you’re completely insane, or if I should be concerned that I’m about to die.” He was only half joking.
She chuckled wryly. “Probably all of those things. Seriously, if you don’t want to do this, or you’d prefer to try it with someone who's been around for an extra fifty years, or whatever, that’s fine. Don’t feel any pressure.”
He looked down at her, considering, but he already knew what his answer was going to be. He’d always been one of those people for whom the danger made him even more likely to do something. And with Kay standing beside him, holding his hand, and promising to jump with him, he was never going to say no. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay.” She watched him for a moment and then dipped her chin in acceptance. “I’ll lead.”
Kay wound her shoulders back and then lowered them, and he felt her breathing slow to a steady rhythm. A stillness seemed to center around her, and then, at the edge of his vision, a dark mist swirled toward her.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
