He felt her magic brighten slightly—with…curiosity, perhaps? But it settled back into place as quickly as it hadappeared.
“What happened?” Enchantress Lovelana asked as she joined them in the circle, a hand pressed to her chest and her eyes wide withshock.
“It seems Evariste’s apprentice wrestled her magic free of the stones and stopped the test,” Clovicus said as he peered up at the sky as the last haze of magiccleared.
“But that shouldn’t be possible,” Enchantress Lovelana stammered. “The testing circle runs off ancient magic—she shouldn’t have been able tointerfere!”
“It seems she has,” Clovicussaid.
Evariste slightly shifted Angelique, wincing at the way she bonelessly leaned against him. (Any other day, she’d be giving him that pinched expression she gave when she thought he wasn’t looking and would look like she’d rather suck lemons than hug him. He’d give anything to see her make that expression rightnow.)
“But these are sacred grounds!” Lovelana said. “No one can influence them or bend them to their will—that’s the reason we hold evaluationshere!”
Enchanter Lazare was the last to join them. He squinted at Evariste and Angelique but ambled past them to stand at the edge of the testingcircle.
“She can’t have actually wrested her magic free!” Lovelanacontinued.
“She hurt herself badly in the process; it’s not like she did it without any consequences,” Clovicus saiddryly.
Lovelana shook her head and stared unseeingly at the gorge. “She shouldn’t be able to do it at all! Centuries of tradition can’t be broken so suddenly and swiftly likethis!”
“She’s going to be one to watch,” Lazare said, breaking Lovelana’s baffled tirade. He nodded and tapped his cane on the giant green crystal that thrust out of the plateau at the very edge of the peninsula. “One to watch, indeed,” he muttered before limping back across thepeninsula.
It took Clovicus nudging Evariste with his foot, then nodding at the crystal for Evariste to lookcloser.
From his position on the ground, holding Angelique, Evariste could make out the jagged crack in the rock that hadn’t been therebefore.
Impossible.
Generations of magic users had used these testing grounds, and never had anyone been able to fight back as Angeliquehad.
Clovicus crouched down next to Evariste, his expression thoughtful. “It does raise the question…just how powerful is your apprentice,Evariste?”
Evariste could only shake his head in shock. “I don’tknow.”
* * *
Everything hurt.
The world was no longer on fire; instead, it felt like every bone in her body had been rattled andbruised.
Even her eyelids felt pained as she struggled to open hereyes.
When she finally managed to peel back her eyelids, all she saw was Evariste’s neck. “Master?” she croaked, her voice rusty andpainful.
“Sleep, Angel,” Evariste said, his voice deep and cool. She felt his arms move around her, and something soothing pressed against herback.
A healing spell, she belatedlyrealized.
“Rest. I’ll take you home,” Evaristepromised.
“‘kay,” Angelique murmured as she relaxedagain.
She was on the cusp of unconsciousness when she felt hermagic.
A whisper of it had escaped her iron grasp, but she could feel it cower like a kicked dog. As she relaxed, she felt it relax as well and drift back into the dark recesses where she usually forcedit.
What was that?She wondered before sleep finally took her, and she exhaled and sank more deeply into the pseudo-embrace Evariste held herin.
