I didn’t expect Akantha to be so anxious. Strong-willed, fierce, and unruly come more easily to mind. She’s all shook up like a soda can, and I’m scared to ask her what she’s decided from sheer fear she’ll explode all over the place the second she opens her mouth. Is this what I can look forward to if I transition? A hotter mess than I already am?

“You’ll want to calm down.” Ryan pats my back. “Think of her like a mirror. Whatever you show her is what you’ll get back.”

“Like a funhouse mirror,” I mumble.

She’s reflecting my emotions, except by the time they hit her, they’ve risen to an exorbitant degree. Just being around others, especially gifted others, is an unpredictable nuisance associated with her enhancement ability. I appreciate why she wants to live secluded in the heart of the Amazon. I’m having too many feels as it is. All the feels? Hard no from me.

I don’t want to cause any unnecessary strain, but my desire to help my friends overrules my empathy. Besides, what safer way to practice control than in the presence of someone who picks up on even the most minor influx? “We need your help,” I petition.

She fidgets with the ties holding her leather pants together. “I cannot help you.”

“I get your need to stick with your unit, but I’d like you to take a few minutes to hear my plea before refusing assistance.”

Team mentality is a foreign concept. Before I was inducted into our group, I was alone by preference. I’m fast realizing how complicated situations can become when multiple parties and circumstances need to be considered. Exclusion is the ideal preventative measure. Direct involvement, coupled with aggressive emotional convergence, makes me doubt my gravitation to logic. In fact, most of my recent actions favor my metaphorical heart over my analytical brain, leaving my moral compass spinning uncontrollably in search of north. Not that I need a better reason than protecting humanity to thwart my transition, but unrelenting interdependence is a good deterrent. Freaking amazing deterrent, actually. I am not a beacon of hope, I am not a bridge, and I am not whatever other weird label these people want to slap on me. I’m just Sheyla Tierney, a needy little girl who broke her toy, asking for it to be fixed.

“You are confused,” Akantha replies curtly, stiffening her muscles and bringing her towering form to full height. “I said I cannot help you.”

She didn’t say she wouldn’t but couldn’t help me, which doesn’t imply a refusal to aid. We’ve reached an impasse.

“You can’t help me,” I repeat, registering the impact.

If that’s true, I’ve permanently separated Ryan and Mel. There’s no coming back from that. Our circumstances are laced with conceptualized impossibilities. How can one impulsively severed connection be final?

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“Can you try?” The words come out sounding desperate.

“It will not work.” Her tone softens exponentially in response to my distress.

Despite her straightened posture, her knees are still shaking. My emotions are wound so tightly around hers it’s difficult to tell who’s feeling what. The flame circles my veins, spreading out and lashing my skin like electric whips.

Fire, the most devastating power, has chosen this timorous creature, and I can’t understand it. Isn’t an accelerant supposed to function in conjunction with another power? Shouldn’t she be able to strengthen my abilities? It isn’t like she’s freshly changed. She isn’t in the experimental stage, exploring what she can accomplish in her evolved state. She’s a seasoned Solathair.

“She has to draw energy. Why not from Ryan?”

“There is no need for energy,” Akantha states, her tone indifferent.

“Of course she needs energy.”

I grow increasingly frustrated over her unwillingness to at least try. Even I’d try. I’ve flown all the way here to try. My flame thickens, migrating slowly through my limbs. Aella steps between us, not entirely blocking the connection but distracting Akantha enough I can cool myself down.

Her expression is regretful. “We do not know this possible,” Aella apologizes.

“How what was possible?”

“Never seen it before,” Akantha agrees.

“Seen what before?”

“No light,” Evadne speaks for the first time.

“No light,” I echo quietly.

There was no connective light when we met them on the shore. An expected response, or lack thereof. Barry prohibits the rainbow display. Do they know what he can do? Yes, they do. Aella mentioned his shield.

“Barry blocks the light,” I reiterate.

“Shield do not fail. No Shield. Still no light,” Aella informs me.

I clench my fists at my sides, wondering why these people feel the incessant need to cryptically cushion their words. Is it a language barrier or a purposeful tactic to get me to draw my own conclusions? Either way, it’s problematically counterproductive. I don’t have the energy or patience to formulate a theory. I just want to know what’s going on.

Derry moves closer, resting his hand on the small of my back, the act centralizing my free-flowing fire to the spot where he touches. He retracts his hand immediately. I miss his ability to read my mind. My head is a hollow, sparsely furnished space without it.

The Amazon Coterie is suggesting that if Barry hadn’t been with us, the shore still would’ve been void of kaleidoscopic luminescence, where Mel is concerned. What prevents Mel from joining the light parade?

I think back to me severing their bond.

“Ryan, you need to break the tie,” I advise him. “It can be reknit. I promise. Right now, though, you need to snip it.”

“I c-can’t,” he stammers. “It’s been s-so long.”

“If you don’t cut it, I’ll have to do it for you,” I warn him.

“C-cut it.”

Now I see what I did. I burned it right apart. It can’t be reknit. There’s nothing to retie.

I scoff. “Impossible.”

“And yet, you have done.” Aella sighs, the weight of the extended conversation also affecting her. She isn’t sure how I’ll respond to the news, which is why she delayed clarifying until I could piece it together myself. She told me numerous times they couldn’t help. I didn’t listen. I didn’t seek clarity. I went right on like I always do, making poor assumptions. I never learn that lesson, no matter how hard it keeps getting pounded into me.

I didn’t break them. What I did, what I somehow miraculously accomplished, was to vaccinate her. I burned the Sumair right out of Mel. She hasn’t craved the energy and is suffering no withdrawal symptoms. She doesn’t need it. By breaking the bond, I’ve given Mel back her humanity.