Devon Monk - Magic on the Storm

He was listening for magic.

I realized I couldn’t feel it like I had before. The deep strumming heat of it beneath the room, beneath the tiles. Outside the inn, the well was usually no more than a faint presence, but down here, the well radiated power.

Or at least it had the day I’d taken my test. And now the well felt-not empty, but certainly less strong, less radiating, less full.

“It’s different,” I said.

Shame paused over tiles that were gray going on black. He knelt, stuck his fingertips against the marble. Took a deep breath, let it out, then rocked back on his heels. “Damn.”

He patted the pocket of his jacket, looking for cigarettes, found them, tapped one out.

“Don’t smoke in here,” Maeve said. Then to me, “How is it different?”

I glanced at Zay. He had moved silently to stand next to Greyson’s cage. Maybe he didn’t want to influence me. Maybe he wanted to pound Greyson.

He wasn’t the only one.

“You want me to Hound the room?”

“First I want you to tell me what you feel. What you sense.”

I’d learned that when Maeve asked me to do something in her teacher voice, she wasn’t really asking. Normally, it bothered me and I gave her lip for it.

But there was something very wrong about the well and the magic here. Something that made me want to go home to my apartment, home to my stone gargoyle, and stay as far away from the Authority and magic as I could.

Like ducking for cover before a storm hit.

Who was I kidding? Even if I went home, I couldn’t get away from magic. It flowed under the entire city, through the conduits and Gothic glyphed cage work that wrapped every building. And it flowed through me.

I tucked my hair behind my ear, my hand trembling. I walked across the room until I stood in the center of it, and stopped just short of where Shame knelt.

The same down-the-throat horror that I usually got from enclosed spaces skittered through my brain and set fire to my nerves. My heart was pounding too hard. I wanted to turn back. I wanted very much not to do this.

Shame watched me from his position on the floor. He placed one hand on the tiles, palm flat. I hoped he wasn’t planning to Proxy or Ground me. I was shaky. I wasn’t sure how magic was going to respond to my cast, or if it would respond at all.

I stopped, spread my feet so I had a chance of staying on them if things got bad. I resisted looking behind me to see what Maeve, Zayvion, and Greyson were doing. Instead, I calmed my mind: Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack. .

I licked my lips. Instead of tracing a glyph in the air, I tipped my head up to the angel-wing ceiling, dropped my hands at my sides, fingers wide and open, and drew the glyph for Seek at my side. I reached out with my senses, using a little magic from inside me to seek. I sent my mental fingers deep, deep into the earth beneath me.

The well was not there. I frowned, reached deeper, sent my magic farther. Finally felt the well, a glow of magic, a heat, yet so far away. The magic was there, still pooling, still flowing, but it was like an ocean at low tide. Or like someone had punched a hole in the well, and magic was draining away. I didn’t feel it filling any other space, didn’t feel it creating new channels, new rivers. Didn’t feel it pouring out through the iron and glass conduits that channeled the magic that flowed freely beyond the well.

Something, or someone, was draining an enormous amount of magic out of the well.

Holy shit.

Magic inside of me went cold and sticky. I wanted to puke. Okay. That was enough of trying to touch the well. I let go of the small Seek spell and tipped my head back down.

Shame watched me with a grin on his face. Nice , he mouthed.

I took a couple breaths, maintaining eye contact with him until I was confident my panic didn’t show. How could he be so calm? Maybe the well emptied out like this all the time. Maybe I was overreacting.

I turned back to Maeve and Zayvion. “Do you really want to talk about this here?”

Maeve frowned. “Why?”

“Greyson.”

“He is contained. Controlled. He cannot hear us. Or see us.”

I glanced over her shoulder. Greyson glared at me from amid the shadows of his cage.

I was pretty sure he saw me.

“Isn’t there a better place to keep him?”

Maeve folded her arms over her chest. “This is the safest place for him exactly because he is near the well.”

I did not believe her. This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. People who use magic to murder should not be anywhere near magic, much less a well of it. How did she not get that?

“What did you feel?” she asked.

Fine. I’d do it her way. But I wasn’t happy about it.

“Something is draining the well.”

I didn’t think Maeve could get any paler. The freckles on her cheeks suddenly seemed darker, and a greenish hue lined her lips.

“The storm?” Zay asked.

“It must be,” she said. “Allie, you hold magic inside your body. Can you sense anything unusual about it within you?”

Other than that it was cold, sticky, and giving me the creeps? “It’s usually warm, or hot. It feels cold. Kind of sticky.”

Shame snorted.

I made a mental note: smack him when his mom wasn’t looking.

“Has it ever felt that way before?” she asked.

“That I can remember? No.”

“Do you feel magic being drained out of you?”

I took a second to concentrate on the magic inside me again. It felt strong right now, just. . wrong. “No. It’s still there.”

“That’s good news.” She didn’t smile. “Shame, come stand with us,” she continued as if this were class. “Allie, I’d like you to Hound the room, to see if there are any unusual spells here.”

She was such a kidder. Every spell, ward, and glyph worked into this room was unusual. Still, I knew what she meant. She wanted me to look for predatory spells, Drains, Siphons, anything else that might be used to screw up the well.

It might help if I knew how the well worked, or how the spells and wards and glyphs normally reacted to being so near it. Nothing like throwing the new girl into the deep end of the magic pool and telling her to dive for pearls.

Good thing my lack of knowledge had never stopped me from doing stupid things before.

I calmed my mind, used my little jingle again, and chose which price I would pay to use magic. My standard pain lately had been muscle aches. Don’t get me wrong: it still hurt to use magic, but since I was working out and hurting anyway, and had the funds to get a massage and soak in the steam room or hot tub every once in a while, I figured muscle aches made the most sense.

I set the Disbursement for muscle aches, then drew the glyphs for Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste.

Spells keyed to life beneath my vision. Pale fire in rainbow metallics crawled up the columns, across the walls. Shadow glyphs, glowing in deeper tones than those on the walls and ceiling, burned like dark ghosts shifting beneath the marble tiles.

Wow. It wasn’t just glyphs worked into the room. The entire room, including the winged arches, was a glyph, carved and constructed to carry magic, to channel it, to hold it, keep it, hide it, tap it.

The art, the vision, the intimate knowledge of architecture and how spells blended, contrasted, strengthened, and weakened, were stunning. I didn’t know who had created this room, but whoever they were, they were brilliant. Genius.

“Allie?”

It was Maeve. I licked my lips and realized I’d been standing there and staring, transfixed by the beauty and power of the room, instead of Hounding.

Embarrassed much?

I paced to the wall opposite the stairway, and made my way along the perimeter of the room. I dragged my fingertips across the wall as I went. The soft, ancient wood, carved and placed here long before this was a train station, long before this was even a building, thrummed beneath my touch. Magic darkened and rippled away from me, like water beneath a soft wind.