Page 48 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

“Jemma? Are you okay? Can you hear us?”

Gabriel rattled off one question after another, his voice unnaturally loud, as though he feared the blinding light had taken my hearing with it when it vanished.

I squinted at him, noticing the strange shimmering auras from earlier had faded almost completely. “I can hear you just fine. And yes, I…I’m okay.” I was pretty sure that I felt more than okay, but I didn’t tell him that just yet.

“Can someone explain what just happened?” asked Trace, standing a few feet away from me, his brows pinched as he scanned me. “Was that her Ascension?”

“Of course it was her Ascension. What else would it be?” retorted Dominic, his dark eyes lingering on me with a hint of reverence, as though he were captivated by me all over again.

“All that light…” Trace swallowed hard, his expression softening. “It came from you.”

It didn’t sound like he was asking me a question, but I nodded anyway.

“Did it hurt?” he asked, as Gabriel crossed the room to where I stood and gently picked up my wrist. My veins were still glimmering like I’d been shot up with glitter, though it wasn’t nearly as pronounced as before.

“No, it didn’t hurt,” I answered Trace, watching as Gabriel inspected my arms, turning them over as he followed my runes. “It felt kind of warm and nice actually. What do you think that light was?”

Gabriel looked up and met my eyes. “I have not the slightest idea.” His apprehensive gaze drifted over my shoulder at my wings, taking them in.

“I called them out,” I said quietly, even though he hadn’t asked about them yet. “When the light surrounded me, I could feel them burning at my back, and I wanted it to stop, so I summoned them. All I did was decide it in my mind, and out they came.” There was no masking the pride in my voice. I’d waited a long time for that moment.

Gabriel furrowed his brows, curiosity sharpening his features. “Do you think you could sheath them now, if you wanted to?” he asked, his voice laced with curiosity.

I wasn’t sure why or how I knew, but I was certain I could.

I nodded at him, then turned my head slightly, focusing as I drew my wings back. I watched over my shoulder as they folded inward, vanishing effortlessly into my back. It was no more difficult than deciding to bend my arm.

“That’s an interesting turn of events,” mused Gabriel, sounding like he was speaking mostly to himself. “What about your other abilities? Do you suspect any changes there?”

My eyes slid to Dominic, who was standing in front of the unlit fireplace, watching me, before meeting Gabriel’s eyes again. I lifted my hands and lowered them slowly, as though pumping an air brake in slow motion.

Everything came to a halt, freezing everyone in the room, except for me. I turned toward the darkened fireplace and called up my fire magic, turning my palm up and then blowing gently against it. The air shimmered from my hand to the hearth as the logs ignited into a fiery blaze.

I smiled, giving myself a moment to take in the haunting beauty of it. It wasn’t every day that life went smoothly for me, and even rarer that things went the way I wanted them to go. I thought I had earned myself a second to appreciate it.

Bringing my palms back down in front of me, I turned them over and then raised them slowly, reanimating the room. So much power in just the palm of my hands…

“I think we should run some tests to make sure,” continued Gabriel, as though the conversation hadn’t been interrupted. He hadn’t yet realized that he’d just lost time. “The sooner the better.”

Dominic grunted and then jerked forward, away from the fireplace as he looked back and eyed the blazing fire that wasn’t there before and then snapped his gaze back to me. “I think she already did, brother,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine as a tiny smirk pulled at his lips. “Isn’t that right, angel?”

Smiling back at him, I nodded.

Gabriel looked between us. “What do you mean she already did?”

I turned my attention back to the roaring fire and lifted my hand again, squeezing my palm into a tight fist. The fire snuffed out behind Dominic, as though it were an extension of me. As though I had absolute control over it and could bend it to my will with nothing more than a thought. Because for the first time in my life… I could .

My abilities had always been weak and uncontrolled, as though the edges of my magic never quite reached the part of my brain that was meant to control it. As though the connection was unfinished and somehow fractured . But all of that was gone now. I felt connected in a way I had never experienced before. All the fractured lines were suddenly razor sharp and everything inside me just seemed…clearer.

“Can someone fill me the fuck in here? What the hell is going on?” asked Trace, his gaze flicking anxiously between the smoking hearth and me. “Did you just put the fire out?”

I frowned, trying to find the words that would explain everything to him, even though I didn’t fully understand it myself yet. “When Gabriel asked me about my other abilities a few minutes ago, I went ahead and tested them. I slowed down time and then called on my fire element to light the logs.”

“You… oh ,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“But it’s more than that. It’s not just the fact that I did it, it’s how easy it was to call on my magic. I can’t explain it but…something happened during my Ascension. Something changed,” I said, looking around the room at them. “I don’t know what it was, but I feel different now.”

“Different how?” asked Gabriel.

“Different… better ,” I said, practically feeling the buzz of magic thrumming under my skin.

The last time I’d called on my fire magic with Caleb, the bends had hit me so hard that I was barely able to pick myself off the ground. I was so taken aback by how hard it had affected me that I didn’t even want to try invoking the other elements, out of fear that it would bury me just as badly—at a time when I couldn’t afford to be down and out.

But I didn’t feel any of that this time. This time, I felt strong and in control of my magic.

Completely grounded in it.

“What about the other elements?” asked Trace, his blue eyes dragging down the length of my body. “Have you invoked any of them?”

“Not yet.” I shook my head. “After the first time I called up fire with Caleb, it knocked me on my ass so hard that I didn’t even want to attempt the others.”

“And now?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

I chewed my bottom lip, thinking about it. “And now, I think I’d like to try again.”

He smiled, his dimples appearing as he retook his seat on the sofa and relaxed into it. Gabriel and Dominic followed suit, leaving me as the only one still standing, as though I were about to give a speech.

Feeling awkward, I quickly sat beside Trace and folded my hands in my lap.

It struck me then that there would be no going back after this. If I invoked the other elements and had an affinity for them, they would be part of my being just as much as my wings were. Jaqueline had mentioned that she believed I might have an affinity to all nine elements—something unheard of among Anakim.

But I was Nephilim, and that alone made it a very real possibility.

Already as it was, I could feel my magic drumming under my skin as though it were trying to fit inside a space that was too small to contain it. Would invoking the other elements add more magic—more power—to the already cramped quarters? Was there a limit to how much one person could safely carry?

For some reason, the thought terrified me.

“Whenever you’re ready, Jemma,” said Gabriel, nodding over to me.

Pushing the thought out of my mind, I refocused on Gabriel, determined not to let my fear and anxiety get the better of me. “I was thinking I’d try wind first,” I suggested thoughtfully, feeling like it was the safer option.

Though I wasn’t entirely sure, I had a strange sense that I might have called upon some form of it earlier when I blew my fire magic to the hearth.

Taking a moment to center myself, I closed my eyes and focused on the air around me—the stillness of it. I held the image in my mind, the sensation of it, and began to call to it, beckoning it to move toward me and then around me. Slowly at first, then faster, I envisioned it swirling around my body, grazing my skin as it passed—around and around—until I actually felt the breeze ruffling through my hair.

It was faint at first, a gentle shift in the strands, but I clung to it, feeling the magic thrumming through my veins. I pulled harder, tugging at it, until the wind whipped around me, lifting every strand of hair, slashing against my cheeks like clawed fingers.

Someone hissed out a curse beside me, but I didn’t open my eyes to see who. Instead, I held fast to the wind as though it were a tangible entity I could manipulate with my will alone. The sound of shuffling pages filled the air, followed by a crash as something hit the floor, the sharp sound of breaking glass ringing in my ears.

“Jemma!”

The wind whipped harder, the air turning cold as it spiraled around me like a tunnel, building and growing with each coil, faster and faster still. It was dizzying… intoxicating… as if the magic was beckoning me to reach out just a little more, to push past the edges and let it swallow me whole—

Cool hands grabbed my wrist, yanking me up from the couch. My eyes snapped open to find Trace standing in front of me, his brows furrowed as he wrapped his arms around my waist. Loose sheets of paper and small objects from the room swirled around us, caught in an invisible vortex that none of us could see, but that we could all feel.

His gaze skirted down to my mouth, darkening as the air in my lungs rushed almost as quickly as the wind swirling around us. His lips crashed into mine, and I immediately opened for him, letting his tongue slip in like it was the antidote to the chaos in my blood.

I groaned softly against his mouth, my eyes slipping shut as his hold on me tightened, his hands pressing into the small of my back and making all the thoughts in my mind turn to him.

The stolen moment stretched into minutes as the tumultuous wind around us began to gradually calm, the echoes of its fury drifting further away before finally stilling completely.

My eyes fluttered open lazily as Trace pulled back, his hands still locked around my waist and holding me to him.

Though the wind around us had stopped, the turbulence inside me was still going strong.

“You know, it’s kind of funny,” he said, his voice deep and smooth, his sapphire eyes tracing my face. “From the moment I met you, I always thought of you as this beautiful, delicate butterfly caught in a storm—something I needed to save.” He paused for a beat, his gaze locking with mine as my heart raced in time with his. “But I see how wrong I was now.”

“Oh.” I frowned, looking down as my shoulders slumped.

He lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes as he smiled at me. “You were never that butterfly, Jemma. You were the whole fucking storm.”

My heart swelled as an impossible grin spread across my lips at his beautiful words—words that were meant just for me.

I may have been the Daughter of Hades, with a bloodline older and darker than time itself, but in that moment, I was just a normal girl, swooning over the boy she loved. And I swore I would hold onto that moment forever, no matter how dark the storm became.