Taken by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #8)(27)

“Of course we can,” Nalan said, sounding a bit miffed. “It is no trouble at all to gift a small measure of power to someone else—our own magic regenerates quickly enough, so it is no loss to us.”

“Here,” Alara said, pressing her index finger to the palm of my hand. “See for yourself.”

I cried out as a sudden jolt of power hit me. My own magic reacted, and I felt power swell inside me like a river during springtime, until I was certain I was going to burst before it finally settled back down. Frowning, I examined it—my magic was at a much higher level, I realized with amazement. Could this be a permanent change?

“You say that’s just a tiny part of your magic?” I asked faintly. Now that I was looking closer, I could see that Alara had doubled my magic with a mere touch of the hand. It was uncomfortably similar to how Resinah herself had passed power down to her disciples, if the stories could be believed.

“Yes,” she said. “That was as much as you could safely absorb. I could try to give you more, but it would likely unmake your entire being.”

“No, no, that’s all right,” I said. I swallowed hard as I looked up at her. No wonder the Tua were considered legendary—they were practically divine beings, especially compared to those who possessed no magic of their own.

“Are you all right?” Nalan said, gazing down at me with concern. “It occurs to me that your mind may have trouble grasping so much in such a short time.”

“I’m fine,” I said, waving away his concern. “And really, thank you for the gift.” It was going to take me a while to get used to the new magic humming in my veins, and I wondered if I was nearly as strong as Iannis now. “Unfortunately, this gift isn’t going to do me much good unless I can get out of here. You both are so extraordinarily powerful—isn’t there a way you can send me back home, to Iannis?”

The Tua shook their heads sadly. “Unfortunately, our laws forbid us to interfere in the affairs of an older member of our race,” Alara said.

“However,” Nalan conceded, a thoughtful look on his face, “as we told you earlier, we can give you a bit of knowledge, to help even the playing field, as your race would say.”

“I’ll take anything I can get,” I said fervently.

“We wish you good fortune,” Alara said solemnly as she touched the nape of my neck again.

I felt that strange sensation of my mind parting again, but this time, instead of something being pulled out, there was immense pressure instead. I gasped as it drove me to my knees, and heard Broghan squawk in alarm as my vision went dark.

“Goodbye, young Sunaya,” Nalan said, his voice sounding very far away. And then everything went black.



When I opened my eyes again, I found myself kneeling in the same forest where I’d first entered the Tua realm. Disoriented, I got to my feet, then took stock of myself to make sure that everything was in order. I was still wearing the leathers Arala and Nalan had given me, and to my delight, they’d replenished the food and water stores in my magical sleeve. Strangely, there was a snakeskin belt with a pretty copper buckle wrapped around my waist that I was fairly certain I hadn’t been wearing before. It was cool to the touch, and as I skimmed my fingers across the black and bronze scales, I wondered if there was anything magical about it.

Putting that question aside for now, I set up a ward around the perimeter of the clearing, then sat down and warily began to sift through my mind for the knowledge that the Tua had promised me. Sure enough, I found it, appearing in my mind’s eye like a beautifully fashioned trunk that needed to be unpacked. Carefully, I mentally turned the copper key and unclasped the latch, then lifted the lid.

Unlike Fenris’s knowledge transfer, this trunk contained no personal memories, just a treasure trove of useful information, like a whole lifetime of textbooks, encyclopedias, and dictionaries in one heap. I gasped as it rushed into me all at once, struggling not to go under in the tide of strange ideas and knowledge, and quickly erected a mental barrier to channel this new influx safely. I imagined a library inside my mind, like Janta’s back in Solantha, and that is where I directed the new knowledge, ready to be consulted when needed.

Suddenly, I understood the nature of the different dimensions. There was an infinity of them aside from Recca and the Tua realm, both dangerous and wondrous in their own ways. Despite their differences, some dimensions were contiguous, like squares of fabric stitched together into one giant quilt. It was possible to get from one to the other, though only a handful were easily accessible from any specific location, and some shifted erratically. Recca and the Tua realm were close neighbors, as dimensions went. The Tua had left the instructions for how to return from their dimension to Recca right in my head. The spell was based on some complicated mathematics, but since the dimensions were currently in close conjunction, simply speaking it would be enough for now.

The problem was, the transfer required a Tua-sized expenditure of magic. Would I be able to perform the spell on my own? With the extra boost in power they had given me, I might just be able to swing it, though from what I understood there was at least an even chance I wouldn’t make it.

Excitement and fear coursed through me all at once, and I wiped my suddenly damp palms on my hands. If I could make this work, I would make it back to Recca, and there would only be one more test to go. But if I failed…I would end up in the void, and die of asphyxiation.