Page 24

Milo remained locked inside his own head, an ocean burying him beneath currents so powerful that his already shattered mind struggled. The Sisters Three had fractured his inner core, ruining every layer of The Inevitable Future’s sanctuary. A piece of my magic had leapt ahead of me, sitting at Milo’s side and wishing him well. I wanted to kiss him, to mend the cruel, callous injuries dealt, but first, I had to stop Theodore, who’d moved on from beating Milo’s unconscious body and retrieved a knife.

“Wonder how much of this you’ll feel.” He pressed the blade below Milo’s eye, intent on slashing his face to pieces.

“ Stop, ” I roared.

Not out loud but the thought created a thunderous response, literally conjuring a storm above the academy. It swelled and lightning crackled. Not real lightning. Maybe. I couldn’t be sure. The raindrops felt real, but they also felt like my sorrow, my sadness manifested into the weather. That wasn’t the case. It made no sense. It was timing. The weather had gone foul, and I created a similar projection of telepathic energy.

The lightning. Christ, I loved watching the crackle hit Theodore’s gnarled tree. Each spark of electricity broke branches off the warlock’s sadistic fantasies. I flew across the auxiliary gym, stopping in front of a bewildered Theodore.

“What’s the matter?” I knelt. “You wanted me to dive deep into your mind.”

Theodore panted, uncertain how so many of his thoughts trembled, boiled, burned, faded, stretched into infinite loops. It wasn’t that my abilities startled him. He fully grasped the capabilities of a telepath. I even unraveled his most intimate and tender moments with the telepath who loved him.

Dr. Kendall. I remembered our brief encounter where her telepathic touch dropped an anvil into my thoughts. Twisting my magic, I decided to try something similar to Theodore, shattering huge chunks of bark from the tree of his inner core.

“You can’t do this.” Theodore pressed his hands to his head, attempting to squeeze me out. His years with Dr. Kendall, the way she’d soothe his every thought while dancing naked in his most depraved fantasies, had taught him how to control psychics who entered his mind.

“You should’ve stayed locked up.” I balled a fist, dropping a mountain of telepathic energy onto Theodore’s skull.

He screamed. The torment enticed me, encouraging me to unleash further devastation. He’d pay for everything. Everything.

Tears welled up in Theodore’s eyes, his hauntingly hollow blue eyes that begged for pity, for me to stop shattering pieces of his memories, of his desires, of his horrible passion for mayhem. It wasn’t like I was destroying them forever. That took a lot more time and continuous breaking while also risking the entire psyche. A level of power I didn’t plan on committing because, “I’m just going to kill you here and now.”

I simply wanted to hurt him first. Like he’d hurt Milo. Like he’d hurt Tara. Like he’d hurt Kenzo. I wanted Theodore to feel the agony of death the same way he’d struck down his victims. I wanted to break his lust for blood. I wanted him to beg.

“Please.” He shivered. “Please help.”

“All that torture and murder, and now you’re afraid to die?” I crept closer, straddling Theodore’s waist and wrapping my hands around his throat.

“Can you do nothing on your own, Theodore?” Amara flicked her wrist and lifted me away, pulling me high into the air and then slamming me down.

I gasped at the sudden crash. Everything ached.

Dammit.

Obviously, I needed to contend with her first. I forced my way back to my feet, ignoring the throbbing pain that burned along my torso. As I winced, I locked onto the minds of students, enduring a small piece of the suffering they dealt with while trapped inside an ocean. It reminded me not to complain about a few bruises.

“You’re bold and foolish.” She tilted her staff toward me, aiming the hundreds of glowing gems in my direction. “I could kill you with a thought.”

I stifled a laugh. “Funny you should say that.”

Honing in on the multitude of magic stored in each of the stones The True Witch wielded, I heard the many slumbering thoughts. Whispers, dreams, comfort in the will of the Celestial Coven. These weren’t unwilling victims but pieces of magics and minds broken off the fallen members of Amara’s foul coven. A coven that had many followers, many members who each strived to join the four pillars. Only the pillars never changed, not for as long as The Sisters Three could recall. Still, those gems held dangerous branches that’d make my battle difficult and drawn out.

“I don’t have time for that,” I muttered, eyeing everyone who fought against the ocean currently drowning them in their heads.

“Seems we’re both on a firm schedule.” The True Witch lifted her staff, preparing to slam it down, and cast some god-awful magic.

“No.” I waved a hand, hurling every ounce of telepathy I could muster.

It sprang forward like a net that wrapped around the bone staff. I yanked my arm close to my chest, reeling the psychic energy with me and ripping out half the gems in one fell swoop.

Not the stones themselves, merely the minds buried in each tiny jewel. The sparkle in the rocks cracked and the glow fizzled away as the magical link had become splintered.

“What have you done?” The True Witch stared at the dying lights of her godly weapon. While she surveyed the losses, I reached out and pulled more fragmented minds from their final resting place, warping the delicate enchantment magic meant to store these magics into the bone staff.

Whether it was from my experience with the chimera’s ability to store magics or the fact that I’d harnessed the full capacity of my branch, this proved easier than anticipated. Not in some overly prideful way. No. The world revealed itself to me and I knew that no one could touch me, not unless I willed it. And right now, the only thing I willed was destroying that horrible bone staff.

“Stop it!” The True Witch extended a hand, throwing an ocean at me, boiling hot and icy cold at the same time. Such an enigma, her arcane branch.

I conjured a sun as bright as Milo and Finn’s joy, a sun so powerful in my mind it dried up every drop of water instantaneously.

“How’d you…” The True Witch cast another pointless ocean that I shriveled to nothingness the moment the water dared touch my mind.

“You’re gonna have to do so much better than that.” I cracked my neck and released the last bit of tension I carried in my shoulders.

Since pulling all my magic back together, out of the subconscious, I’d found every thought pounded against my skull from across the city. It hadn’t been very long, and yet millions of minds each going about their day whispered. Was this why I created Nico? A child’s delusional way of filtering out the world. Was this why I snapped off pieces of my branch to begin with? There was so much power. Despite the pain, I rose above it, feeling impossibly strong.

Thousands lay here at the academy, sinking in the water conjured by The True Witch’s Oceanic Collapse. I unleashed every thread of my psychic energy, knowing Amara wouldn’t attempt a third cast of her branch.

“What would be the point?” I tilted my head toward her, a mockingly wicked smile on my face and a glint in my eyes that said I’d kill her. “ And if you don’t grasp that expression, know that once I’ve saved everyone here, I’m going to kill you. Going to break you the same way I did your silly little bone staff. ”

Her bright green eyes shot open with shock at how easily I linked to her mind. A mind guarded by the many magical tattoos covering her skin.

I broke Milo out of his ocean first, pulling together the shattered memories of his happiest times. He was too exhausted to continue fighting, but honestly, there were only a few fiends left to contend with, thanks to the amazing Gladiatrix, Enchanter Diaz, and Priscilla, who’d wiped out Theodore’s demons.

As I worked to remove the oceans from mind after mind, I worked to stitch together Milo’s thoughts. He slept on the ground, covered in blood and bruises, and I desperately wanted to hold him, hug him, hear his voice. But he slept. Even in his mind, he slumbered in a deep silence unlike any I’d experienced with him before.

Milo always worked, even when resting. The Sisters Three, The True Witch, and Theodore had broken his mind and left him too exhausted to function.

I clenched my fists, dropping Amara to her fucking knees.

“Did I say you could leave?” I scowled at her continued attempt to break loose and flee.

She pressed her hands against the stage floor, resisting the telekinesis I hit her with. Desperation seethed from her surface thoughts, twisting and twirling between a dozen different languages, but the feelings, the intent, the truth painted the air above her with obvious plots. Fatigue oozed out of her pores. It seemed wielding her staff took a lot of channeling efforts, and losing it hurt even more.

I wanted to savor the deep-seated sorrow that ate away at her. So much power, so much history, and some pathetic nameless telepath destroyed it. Venom dripped from her mind when picturing my face, unaware of who I was and how I held such magic at my disposal.

“You’ll carry my name with you to Hell.” I turned away from her. “I promise you that.”

I’d kill her. I’d kill Theodore. But first, I had to repair their damage, I had to save everyone here, I had to wake Milo. God, how I had to wake him and return The Inevitable Future, the happiest guy I knew, the reason I looked forward to living each new day.

It took a lot of work, effort, and streaming telepathy in every direction, but I managed to slowly piece together Milo’s broken mind and remove the oceans drowning everyone in the nearby vicinity. And I did mean everyone nearby. Amara’s magic had started to extend beyond the campus grounds, inching toward the businesses and neighborhoods, locking unaware people in a magical ocean.

The relief in every mind struck with this euphoric calm. I’d done it. I’d removed every single drop of arcane magic from The True Witch. I’d saved everyone’s life. I’d stopped the worst possible outcome from coming to be. An unknown outcome. A horrible possibility created by the Celestial Coven and Theodore Whitlock.

I turned back to him, to Amara, and prepared myself for the next necessary evil. Taking a life shouldn’t feel this easy. Snuffing out someone wicked shouldn’t come with such a righteous high. Yet I couldn’t hide the satisfaction radiating off my thoughts. I wanted them dead. For what they’d done, what they still wanted to do with each ticking second, and what they’d continue doing if someone showed mercy.

“I’ll carry the burden of taking justice into my own hands.” I balled my fists, wrapping telekinesis around each of their throats so I could steal the breath of their lives.

Theodore cackled. “How gracious of you.”

“ I won’t die here. ” Amara’s thoughts held the same French accent she used everywhere but slipped into a different dialect with a deeper and darker tone.

I wanted to unravel her secrets, learn who The True Witch really was behind the mask she’d worn over the centuries, but The Sisters Three didn’t hold the answers in their memories, not the ones I’d glossed over, and I sincerely doubted they managed to withhold pertinent intel after my demands.

“Looks like you get to carry those secrets to your grave,” I whispered, tightening the grip of my telekinesis.

“Too bad,” Theodore gasped, struggling to speak but struggling even more to think with the gnarled tree of his inner core fractured. “It’s…a…good…secret.”

Amara triggered her tattoos, protective sigils which interacted with the broken enchantments across Gemini Academy.

“Time to go, Theodore.” Several of Amara’s tattoos flickered in this erratic but rhythmic pattern before purple smoke whirled around her and Theodore, stealing the two of them away from my grasp and out of range of my telepathy.

“No,” I shouted.

Had they left the city? Left this plane of reality?

I turned to Gladiatrix, who’d begun helping people to their feet. I wanted to call out to her, demand she break through the smoky portal door The True Witch must’ve accessed in her escape. Gladiatrix had done something similar when bursting through Ernesto’s warp portal. Speaking of Ernesto, his mind had vanished, too. All of Theodore’s warlock crew members had disappeared. I scanned the crowd as everyone slowly collected their bearings. Nowhere. Darla, Vincent, and Ernesto were nowhere to be found.

“ The enchantments… ” Katherine’s mind soared above the others. “ How do I stop this? ”

She studied the activated enchantments lining the auxiliary gym. Not activated. So much more according to the growing concern in Katherine’s thoughts as she shouted at everyone around her to brace for an attack.

What?

Each sigil lining the academy glowed brighter, fueled and filled with explosive magics that The True Witch left behind as she escaped.

I swallowed hard, lost in the sea of frantic minds without a life raft to help. There was so much terror. I couldn’t turn it off. My telepathy couldn’t help here. I couldn’t stop this explosion.

One by one, the enchantments detonated, carrying a powerful burst of fire and debris. Industry pros followed Gladiatrix and Enchanter Diaz’s leads as they created telekinetic barriers over as many people as they could.

Those with branches like Melanie used their control over the elements to block or redirect the fiery destruction, while others with branches like Yaritza used the sheer destructive power of their magic to stop the explosions in their path.

Jamius summoned so many duplicates that he became his own explosion of protective copies meant to shield stragglers.

King Clucks and Gael shouted with a furious duet that carried their telekinesis in waves of early morning crows, bombarding and smothering the rampant fire.

Caleb channeled telekinesis to shield those nearby, and Katherine flew behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and syncing their casting frequency. This enhanced Caleb’s range and control, allowing for stronger barriers of telekinetic energy.

Layla leapt to her cousin’s side, shielding them from the destruction, only for Vik to finally master Jamie Novak’s whirlpool magic. They summoned the swirl of teleporting water with Tia beside them, signing an invocation meant to reinforce the copy of Jamie’s arcane branch. Emmanuel, the final member of their trio, held each of his coven mates by the shoulder and poured every ounce of luck he had into them. As a team, they dragged damn near fifty people through a watery portal to safety.

Kenzo and Gael hugged, creating a telekinetic barrier enhanced by the hexed disruption that shielded them and everyone in their vicinity.

Tara lashed out with shadowed whips in every direction, sealing people with protective golden hues or transforming them into momentarily intangible beings.

Carter pulled Jennifer into an embrace, pressing his hands to her face and whispering something I couldn’t hear, something my telepathy had waned during, missing the brief exchange.

Jennifer nodded, anxiously standing closer to Carter. Their heartbeats thrummed so loudly in their minds that it became the only sound in the scattered explosions across campus. Seconds of nervous heartbeats until Carter leaned forward and pressed his lips against Jennifer’s.

The two shared their first kiss amidst the devastation. Their connection, their understanding of each other’s frequencies, their emotional bond synced their casting. Actually, it did so much more. It harmonized their branch magics, allowing Jennifer to absorb Carter’s vitality and cast it outward in waves of emotional radiance meant to empower everyone in the auxiliary gym with confidence and belief and hope.

It seemed nearly every person unleashed their magics, protecting themselves and others around them from the rapid explosions that leveled the entire academy.

I stood alone, lost in the confusion, and so damn tired. The continuous channeling of so much magic made me drowsy. Making a barrier to protect myself seemed pointless. It was work I didn’t have the strength or focus for.

My breathing hitched. I wasn’t the only one up here on the stage. Milo! I needed to find the will to create a barrier and shield him. I needed to… My knees buckled, and I wobbled forward.

“ Dorian. ” Milo leapt toward me, sweeping me into his embrace as we spun round and round. “ I won’t let anything ever happen to you. ”

He hugged me tightly, ignoring the pain of the beating he’d taken while unconscious. Ignoring the still delicate inner core that held his broken psychic magic. Ignoring the fates of everyone else that he worried deeply about. In this moment, he didn’t care about any of that as much as he cared about me. His love boomed so loudly that it drowned out the world of thoughts, offering me a reprieve from the chaos.

Milo was my life jacket in the storm. I loved him with every breath I took.

I squeezed Milo in return, holding his back gently to avoid the bruising and resting my head on his shoulder as we twirled in the fiery destruction, shielded by telekinesis.