And there’s that dread again. The bruising throb ofThis can’t last. This is too good. You’re too broken to handle this.
We’re both broken, though. And our jagged pieces don’t exactly fit together, but we know how to move around the sharpest points of each other’s, how to adjust and make space so no one bleeds.
We spend a week setting up extra safety precautions before we do more tests. During that, I still try my best to find evocation solutions for Thio’s project, but he’s right; it’s too big. Too complex. We don’t have a hope of solving it, let alone making any headway, and I can’t be too upset about it, what with how dangerous it would be for conjuration wizards to be able to disconnect from what they conjure.
Even though Thio’s project won’t be a big part of our final presentation, we’re still incorporating conjuration ideals into mine, and that pacifies Davyeras, Thompson, and Narbeth at our next check-in. They’re excited we’re running tests and thrilled at the measuring cup concept we’re trying, even without Thio’s project.
A little over a month until we’re due to present our joint paper, we run a test on my spell safety net. It’s small, a cap to limit component drain on a low-level ice spell. The spell requires a cup of water and one gram of quartz; we’re trying to take that amount from a full, solid pound of quartz. That’s the safety net rune we’ve come up with, one that should automatically pull a gram of a material component, then stop. No focus needed from us.
We set it all up. I summon Nick for a boost, and he sits at my side in a sharp purple beret. Thio has Paeris wrapped around his arm for his own boost, and he activates the security measures and gives me a thumbs-up from the side of the room. He’s watching everything, checking wards, monitoring the components. It’s a simple test and we’vedonesimple tests before. I don’t know why this feels big.
I draw the evocation circle on the center marble dais with the added safety net rune. Murmur the incantation, tugging on my connection to Nick for an extra controlled swell of magic.
The spell triggers.
The block of quartz vibrates, and Thio and I both watch as a chunk vanishes from the top corner before the water freezes solid.
Neither of us moves. For one minute. Two. Watching, waiting for a rebound, for the magic to decide it didn’t like our new rune and go haywire.
But nothing happens.
It—worked?
Our eyes lock.
My face hurts with my smile, and Thio’s grinning, too.
“Again?” I ask, winded; my heart thinks we’re sprinting around campus.
He nods, giddy. “Again.”
“That last glass of champagne was a bad idea.”
I verify that statement by tripping on the warped carpet outside my apartment, a warp I’ve successfully stepped over every day for several years.
Thio catches me, sputtering laughter, and rolls us until I’m trapped against the door. His eyes darken, and it flips all the switches in my body, every single one. Heat here and my own internal fizzy bubbles rocketing through my veins there.
“No,” he says against my jaw, nipping at the skin in a slow ladder-climb of bites up to my ear. “What was a mistake were those awful gin drinks you ordered.”
I scoff. “Excuse you, gin is never amistake.”
“It tastes like old lady perfume.”
His teeth on my skin and the fuzzy-headed fog from the alcohol are working against me in perfect sync, so I almost forget we’re talking, almost forget we’re still in the hall.
He’d picked the restaurant, somewhere to, and I quote,celebrate both of us being brilliant.
There’s a rune now that prevents wizards from draining their components.
We’ve run test after test the past two weeks, with six variations to account for six different component amount requirements, and the safety net rune works every time.
Knowing it exists, knowing itworks,heals something inside me. No, notsomething; I know what it heals. I can tell eighteen-year-old me that there’s a way to stop it now. What they made me do to Orok. I didn’t use an evocation circle then, I didn’t use runes at all, but this is a start—it’ll lead to figuring out a way to incorporate safety nets into incantations, into every part of a spell, until that protection is ingrained in magic.
I grip the lapel of Thio’s jacket and rock up against him.
“You’re the one who chose that pretentious bar,” I manage. “They had the high-end gin, so I had to—”
His phone vibrates. It’s in the front pocket of his jacket, so I feel it hum between us.
