Jonas (Darkness #7)(39)

I vaguely watched three people chasing one large, male warrior through the cabbage field as I neared the place Cato and I had linked. And though he’d been removed, it wasn’t hard to figure out where he’d gone. A collection of bowed heads gathered near the back of a van, all somber, a few crying.

I walked up slowly and was greeted by a grim-faced Toa and Dominicous.

“How is he?” I asked quietly, seeing the white head between the bodies as it lay in the van.

Dominicous reached out and ran his fingers down the side of my face. He let his hand settle on my shoulder. “He didn’t make it.” His eyes were soft and relieved as he looked at me, and though he wouldn’t say it where we were standing, I knew he was intensely relieved I had pulled through. That if it was a choice between Cato and me, even though Cato was more valuable, Dominicous would’ve chosen for me to come out alive.

I stepped toward him and circled his waist with my arms. He hugged me tight. His cheek came down on my head. “Thank the gods you are okay,” he said quietly, right next to my ear. “You scared me.”

“I scared myself. Nathanial was… unreal. Far above anything I have seen.”

“He’s had a lot of experience,” Toa said. I felt a light pat on my back. Toa’s version of gushing. He was the creepy uncle in my life, and I loved him for it.

“But Cato had more.” A pang hit deep inside me. I hadn’t known Cato all that well, but what I did know, I really liked. He was a sweet, kind of senile guy with so much history and world experience. I wished I had a chance to get to know more of him. To learn more from him.

“He did, and he didn’t,” Toa said cryptically. “They were evenly matched at one time, but Cato’s age caught up with him. He lived beyond his years. Nathanial was still in his prime. He was still experimenting and learning.”

“Cato held on to pass on the most important of his knowledge—linking our kind to humans.” Toa turned slightly to allow Mage June to join our small circle. Dominicous released me so Mage June could look directly into my eyes. The gaze held intense sadness, loss, uncertainty and a slight edge. “He imparted the knowledge of the black and white link. The magical yin and yang. Throughout the battle he muttered that you were a natural. That you took to it as if the danger wasn’t an issue at all.”

“Danger… wasn’t an issue. Was it?” I scrunched my face up in confusion. “I mean, I got dizzy and whatever, but then… it was kind of like what I always had. Only, easier, kinda. It was more balanced. It felt natural.”

“Yes, his point exactly. It took him ten years of study to link in that way without his spells morphing into something dangerous. Something that could kill him, his link partner, and everyone around them. When a person works with the other half of magic, inverting is always a huge risk. To invert is to create some horrible, unpredictable spells.”

“Oh.” I waved that thought away. “I’ve already learned that lesson. My teachers taught me like they taught their own kind. I set whole rooms on fire.”

“Me, too,” Paulie said from a few feet away.

Mage June’s eyes flicked toward Stefan. I could tell it was a silent reprimand by the sudden stiffness of my mate and the defensiveness bleeding through the link. She focused back on me. “We will need to pick your next linking partner with care. It has to be someone both familiar with you, your type of magic, and—“

“It’ll be Toa. Anyway, can I see Cato?” I interrupted. If she thought I was going to be sucked into the world of politics on the tail-end of a vicious battle where I lost one of my mentors, she was losing her mind.

Her lips turned into a thin line, but she moved aside slowly. Toa stepped closer and moved me closer to the van. In my ear, he whispered, “Cato was hoping for you and Stefan to one day take his and Mage June’s role. You two will have a lot of interest from the Council. I would be wary, were I you.”

“Not in the mood, Toa.”

My breath caught as people stepped out of the way and I saw Cato. He lay on a pad. His eyes were closed and hands crossed over his chest. He looked so peaceful, as though he were sleeping. But his chest was still. There was no rise and fall of breath.

Tears sprang to my eyes. “Does he have any family or anything?”

“No. His mate lost her life in childbirth along with the child. He never re-mated or adopted any other children.” Toa stared down at Cato with glossy eyes. “He was my mentor. When I first started working with magic, he saw my potential and worked with me. He’ll be greatly missed.”

“Yet you didn’t want to be his mage?”

Toa steered me away so others could pay their respects. “He already had Mage June. Plus, he knew I wanted to be in the thick of things. I wasn’t meant for stuffy meetings and staying in one place for long. I was meant, instead, to find you. And pass on my teachings.”

He led me away from the others a little. We turned toward the cabbage field, which was mostly demolished near the road, and stared out for a while in silence. A few more people had made a run for it, but it looked as though they’d been caught, hog-tied, and left to think over their life’s choices, because they lay in heaps sporadically through the field.

“You were certain what you said to Mage June—you trust me to engage in the deep link?” Toa’s voice sounded wispy and uncertain.