Lucas turns from me and my shoulders sag in relief. He gives Jinx a wry grin. “Bet you’d love that.”
Jinx scowls. “Please take what I’m about to say very seriously. If you touch me, I will vomit. Now get back in bed.”
“Then please take what I’m about to say very seriously… No.” Lucas smirks wickedly when Jinx hisses. With a wink that is more attractive than it has any right to be, he limps off to disappear into the bathroom.
Door shut and water running, I lock eyes with Jinx.
Those cat eyes scan me, hard and disappointed. “You can barely move.”
“Yeah, but I can talk.” I try a smile. “And I slept well. And look.” I lift my hand to hover it shakily two inches off the bed. “See? Look at that.” It flops back down with a thud. “Where’s my gold medal?”
Jinx is unmoved. “It’s not a good sign that you’re still so debilitated even after proper sleep. I know you won’t listen, but I must say it anyway.” I shift under Jinx’s intense stare. Her voicelowers. “You have too many parasitic spells to maintain, and you muststopfeeding them.”
I roll my eyes. So overprotective. “Jinx, it’s fine. I fed the shop with the excess magic from the inventory. It barely took a nibble from?—”
Her fangs flash. “If only that was the limit to your insanity! You think I do not know? I live within your soul, child. Iknowyou fed the curse without me. And worse! You ripped from it mid-feed and immediately went into battle. You cannot do that, Astoria! Your threads are unbalanced enough as it is.”
My eyes are wide, my heart thundering as I defend myself. “How was I to know the spider—” Her glare cuts me off and I swallow before trying again, “I admit that it was shortsighted, but so much of the situation was beyond my control. I’ll be more careful.”
Jinx rubs her temples before continuing. “You’re damn lucky you didn’t die instantly. Now your grimoire is out of reach, with no way to commune with it. You’ll start to feel the strain from the curse and your threads will become unbalanced when one begins to become dominant with no way to ease the burden.”
I try to speak, but Jinx cuts me off. Sorrow softens the shifter’s gaze, her voice dropping. “What if I’m not able to save you next time? I cannot lose you, Astoria.”
I hesitate, and Jinx turns away from me. Her voice is still low, a stark contrast to my familiar’s usual prickly tone. “I’m going to check downstairs and make sure all the wards are holding. Stay in bed. I’m serious. Don’t test me, or you’ll risk more than my temper. The moment you are better, bymyassessment, we will journey into your heart to evaluate the state of your threads. Then we’ll know how much shit we’re in.”
All I can do is nod and watch my familiar disappear down the stairs, a fresh new layer of guilt adding to my growing pile.
CHAPTER 8
It’s taken me two days of bed rest to have the strength to make the trip downstairs to my shop’s back room. Luckily, Lucas is sleeping so deeply in my bed that he wouldn’t notice if the indoor plumbing exploded, let alone me sneaking out.
Now I sit cross-legged on the freshly swept floor, candles and crystals surrounding me. Usually, I don’t use such excessive measures, but I’ll take all the help I can get at this point. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this journey without my grimoire’s assistance. It’s like reading by candlelight instead of lamplight. I can perform the magic without it, but it makes everything so much easier.
Jinx hops up onto my shoulders and wraps her fluffy cat body around my neck. With a synchronized steadying breath, we begin. A rumbling vibrates from Jinx. Deeper than her purr, the frequency echoes within my bones. My eyes heat as they close and I’m sure my glowing green irises shine through the skin. My heart thuds, fighting against the thrumming that threatens to overtake its rhythm until, finally, it gives in and stills in one agonizing second.
My lips part before…shwoom, my mind sucks within me. The pain of suspended death is overwhelming, but Jinx isthere as a ghostly rope within my soul that twines around my consciousness. In this strange place of half-death, I am a spirit within my own heart and soul with a body that mirrors the mortal shell that I live in. Viola described it as my mind making sense of the impossible. I perceive that I have a body, because that’s how I understand my existence to be.
Jinx guides me, pulls me in, and keeps me from floating away until I land on the anchored rock within my soul.
There are not many weavers who can enter their souls to behold the magic thread within. Almost like tipping into a new world, each weaver experiences their magical plain differently. Some perceive their souls as deserts with the thread as an oasis. Other soft fields of magic. Mine is a raging ocean. Thunderous, black waves battle against a massive cliffside, a prison for my wild Entropy magic. Each roaring crash erodes away at the rock face, endeavoring to chip away enough of it for the cliff to come tumbling down.
It didn’t always exist this way. When I first journeyed into my soul as a child, the Entropy ocean was a dark, bottomless sea, calm and peaceful. It lapped tentatively at a rocky shore that housed a beautiful forest with leaves made of dancing golden flames, the light glittering magnificently with the power of Creation.
Jinx walked along the shore with me then, explaining my fate as a Dual Thread. That every time I use magic, the ocean or forest will swell. The ocean’s waves will build and build until a tsunami drowns the forest, or the forest will grow, the golden flames resembling a sun that will boil away the water until there is nothing left. That is the pain I feel when my two threads battle. An endless war within my heart to dominate my soul.
It was with this concept in mind that I forged the cliff. With the help of my grimoire, I sliced deep along the shore, then lifted it high so that each thread had their own half of my soul to residein. Perhaps that would’ve been enough, but the Rosemont flame is too powerful and my curse… too hungry.
I made a mistake. I didn’t understand how often I needed to commune with my grimoire to keep my curse from finding the ends of my Soul Threads within. It touched my Entropy Thread, attempted to climb it to my soul. Jinx saved me that day and forced the curse back into the grimoire. But the damage was done. A sheen appeared along the icy dark ocean, spreading until consuming it and transforming the water to oil. A chilling fuel that only made the black flame stronger. Now the ocean rages against the cliff, endlessly trying to reach the shores to devour me like it did the rest of the Rosemont line.
It is the cliff’s integrity that I’ve come to inspect, but I’m greeted by something far worse than a weakened bluff.
My soul is a hellish chaos, and the waves are higher than they’ve ever been. No longer are they beating against the rock. They nearly overwhelm it.
My physical body chokes on the breath I hold and Jinx’s claws sink in to hook into my flesh. The pricks center me and I twine my spirit more securely to my familiar’s anchor line as I teeter on the cliff’s edge. I turn from the black ocean to inspect the lush forest of bright light. My stomach plummets. Creation’s light is dim, the leaves of flames barely flickering, splatters of black, oily water from the waves dousing sections. Several trees are small and sickly, more winter meadow than forest.
This is why it’s taken me so long to regenerate. My Entropy Thread is devouring Creation before it can grow strong enough to oppose it.
If I had my grimoire, I’d be able to pour some of Entropy’s raging power into it, weakening the waves until I could force a calmness upon the ocean once again. It would give the light time to sizzle through the oily puddles until the forest regenerates.It’s a careful balance, one that I’ve meticulously maintained until now.
