Determination bubbled beneath my skin. With great effort, I wrenched myself away from the waking dream and back into reality, using Cove’s grasp on my wrist and his familiar presence as a focal point, pulling and climbing from the dredges of sleep with every ounce of strength I had. I felt as though I were falling through space, my skin prickling as I settled back into it. Finally, my eyes snapped open, meeting the solemn golden gaze of another rook as it soared out from the tunnel above me. My cheeks stung as it flapped its wings hard in the air above, dust and dirt scraping against my bare skin.
I blinked, and we vanished, reappearing back behind Eliza and Sinbad. Cove’s bruising grip slid off my arm as he stepped forward, pulling the bow from where he’d slung it across his back. He pulled the string taunt, balancing his arrow along his left pointer finger and aiming at the new rook.
“Not that one!” I called out as the arrow darted forward.
I breathed a sigh of relief as it went wide, missing Setare completely. Eliza shot me a dirty look, having missed her target as well. “Specify which ‘one’ you’re talkin’ about next time, yeah?”
She raised her voice louder, nearly shouting as the rooks soared past each other.
“If it wasn’t clear, aim for the larger one!”
Setare swooped above our heads, making no move to attack us. Cove cursed but spun slightly on his feet, directing his next arrow at the much larger first rook as Sinbad and Eliza sent attacks that seemed to purposefully go wide, herding the rook in the direction they wanted.
Cove’s black-shafted arrow cut cleanly through the air, grazing the tip of the rook’s wing as it screeched in pain.
An image of Ember crying alone at home and Setare’s brother tearfully wondering what happened to his sister came to me. Pain crawled up my hand as my nails dug into my palms, brushing the skin beneath the gloves. A shadow soared over my head, and I angled it back to watch Setare’s tail feathers as she swooped through the air.
“Setare!”
Our eyes met, and I saw tiny golden sparks shine like the stars in her pitch-black eyes. In between blinks, the world seemed to waver between the muted hues of the library at night and the deep blue and dark browns of the boss area. I was drawn to Setare like a magnet, our close proximity making the feeling grow stronger.
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Setare seemed to feel the same, and she dropped lower, arcing around the walls to angle her flight back toward us. She thought better of it at the last second, shaking her head and sending tiny tufts of feathers raining on our heads as she flew above, turning to keep a single eye on me.
The pull lessened.
Recalling my limited experiences with mental magic, I closed my eyes, trusting Sinbad, Eliza, and Cove to handle the other rook. I focused my attention inward, searching for the source of the pull. Finding it, I experimentally attempted to ‘tug’ on it. A small piece of light broke off, sinking into my veins so easily it felt like my own.
A pleasant type of heat flowed through me, like the energy that surged once you ate your first meal in a while, blasting its way through any coldness I felt in the water. I felt stronger, healthier, more awake than I’d ever felt before. My euphoria drained as quickly as it had set on, a massive dark pit opening up in my stomach as the reality of what I had done settled beneath my skin.
Stealing other’s magic was Ava’s sin.
I could not be her.
Forcefully unclenching my fists, I tried to tug on the part of Setare connected to me, pulling on the entire section this time rather than the crumbling edges of the stardust. She cried out as she turned on a dime, heading towards me at great speed like a boomerang back to its tosser or a magnet to its opposite.
A wave broke on my waist and mist splattered my face as she landed feet from me, her claws and wings displacing an unseemly amount of water from where she landed.
I desperately hoped my plan would work.
“Transform,” I said, casting the spell upon her.
Thick smoke as black as the feathers on her back spun in a tornado around her, flinging water in all directions. One of the others shouted something I didn’t quite catch, the words stolen from my ears by the wind howling around. They vanished as suddenly as they appeared, a large black dog the size of a small house in the rook’s place.
Her ears dropped to the side of her head, and she lifted her lips in a snarl, jabbing her nose at me as if to ask for some sort of explanation.
“If I’m correct–” which I usually was “--once the spell wears off, you’ll be human again.”
Her black tufted ears slid a few centimeters off her head at that in an odd show of interest mixed with distrust. Another wave threatened to bowl me over as she plopped into a regal-looking seat, her eyes glimmering with hope as she tilted her head questioningly.
“About 10 minutes.”
Her shoulders drooped forward, and her head dipped a little lower at my words.