On a Razor's Edge (Darkness #3)(16)

Toa started to loudly hum in that way a person does when their mouth was gagged but they had important information to impart. I moved to the end of my protective bubble and peered in the room, just making out his wide eyes.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Toa seems perturbed.”

“Then how do we undo it?” the head guard asked.

It was like I hadn’t run up in a dead sprint a few minutes ago asking that very same question. “Possibly find a teacher of mine to lend a hand?”

Toa started to do his communicatory hum again.

“Maybe not. He’s probably afraid I’ll blow them up.”

An hour later I sat in my bubble, cross-legged on the ground, my chin on my fists, watching as white power zipped around the room. My magic had receded, and while the men couldn’t move much, they could move enough for Toa to get his palms and magic active. I was plenty able to suck the residual magic out of the room now, and I suspected Stefan could’ve as well, using that weird balancing thing he did, but the humor dancing in his eyes as Toa stubbornly tried to undo whatever I had done, kept me from mentioning it.

Finally, in a bright flare, I felt a tug on my chest. All captured men took a huge, lung-filling breath.

“Okay, come out of there.” The head guard, whose name was Bernie, jerked his hand in the air to facilitate my removal.

“Nope. I think I’ll just hang on to see if they’re angry.”

“Your magic fades. You’ll have to come out sometime.”

“Wrong again. I keep replenishing this spell. Or charm. You know, I have no idea what the difference is. At any rate, this baby is as strong as strong can be. I’m good in here for a little longer.”

Unfortunately, a little longer wasn’t long at all.

One very serious-looking Regional strolled up to my self-made cage and looked down on me. His perfectly blank face still managed to communicate his complete lack of humor at that moment. “Care to enlighten us on what happened?”

That stare had me babbling. “Too much power filled me too quickly and I had to do something with it! For some reason I did that thickening spell. But then I didn’t know how to undo it because I’d never successfully done it before. But I couldn’t open the door because the air was, well, you know how it was. So I ran around the side, but then your guards thought I did something awful—which doesn’t really make sense since I ran back toward them—so I locked myself in here for protection until we could figure it out!”

“You tried that spell outside and couldn’t complete it. Why did it work this time?”

“I have no idea!”

And I didn’t. Largely, everything to do with magic had thus far eluded me. School had never been my strong suit. My magic not working properly meant I hadn’t been able to figure it out.

“She has been working with lesser levels of power in the wrong way,” Toa explained, leaning against the walls. “She could have great control, but first needs to learn the ways of directing her power. It is like riding a bicycle extremely slow. The bicycle wobbles; balance is hard to maintain. Ride it with more speed, and you will steer with ease.”

Toa could learn a thing or two from Dominicous’s stare.

“I see. I am not in the habit of sitting, for an hour, in extremely uncomfortable situations.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

He grunted. Apparently an apology had been his agenda. After the explanation, obviously.

He turned to Stefan. “We’ll need another room. I’d like to wrap this up and make plans for the next steps.”

“There’s more?” I asked in horror.

“Not for you. Please wait in your chambers until you are called. You are excused.”

After glancing toward Stefan and seeing I wasn’t in any danger, I picked apart my protective shield and went on my way. Charles did not follow.

*****

“Toa, results please,” Dominicous asked with a straight back, sitting in a leather chair.

They’d moved to a room in the back of the mansion and warded the room against eavesdroppers. They each sat in separate chairs, trying to mask the importance of these findings, both for Stefan, and for their overall cause. Finding someone with a black power level could open doors they hadn’t even contemplated.

Stefan had another reason to be nervous, as well. They would need to discuss his mate, and his future. Most importantly, what would happen if those two things couldn’t both be Sasha while in his leadership role.

“Her power is beyond my own,” Toa said easily. “It doesn’t work like mine, either—like ours. She is like a conductor for magic. Like a hub. She doesn’t have to reach for it and pull it into herself, she merely has to identify which elements to let in, and then try to stop the flow once she has begun to draw. Her spells will continue building magic until realized, always trying to return back to her. As you saw, her spells, once laid, take longer to unravel. And like you saw, that is not always a good thing.”

“Then…she is definitely black,” Dominicous clarified.

Stefan held his breath.

“Without a doubt, she is a myth reincarnate. And completely, completely ignorant as to the ways magic works. All the training she’s received thus far is useless. She blows things up because she is the polar opposite to my—our people’s—power. She tries to work a spell inverted, and it combusts.”