Another awareness is pressed tightly against me, and it sends all my nerve endings firing with all kinds of sensations. A tingling feeling begins to build at my core, but I can’t concentrate on what the hell it is as image after image begins to flash in my mind. They move so fast that it’s hard to make them out. Sometimes I catch what I think is me as a kid, sometimes there are other children who I don’t recognize.
I catch an image of me on Christmas morning opening a toy horse set that I’d wanted for years. A boy cuddling a fat orange tabby. Me crying after my first mean girl experience in middle school. Two boys sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to go fishing. A man screaming, his face contorted with rage. A pouch of bones that aren’t mine. My first kiss. A fist fight between the same boys who snuck out to go fishing, but they’re older now, and I can recognize Rogan in one of the teenager’s faces.
I see my dad hugging me the day he told me he was sick. Bloody hands that are heavy with despair. Me, sitting in the bathtub, staring dead-eyed at the tiled wall the day I found my dad’s note. A beautiful woman writhing in ecstasy as Rogan works himself in and out of her. My last boyfriend dropping to his knees and slowly pulling my underwear down.
Shock ricochets through me, and I try to pull away from the reel of our lives that’s flashing in front of me, but before I can do anything, I feel the magic that’s blooming in my chest intensify and grow blindingly brighter. It’s as though someone just detonated a small atom bomb behind my sternum, and a pulse of light and power explodes out of Rogan and me.
It rips all traces of punishing magic from Tad and throws my Aunt Hillen against the balcony railing when it slams into her. The windows of my apartment rattle, and the door to the empty apartment next to mine cracks up the middle. I pant as waves of emotion and sensation power through me. Confusion, need, loss, interest, frustration, it’s hard to think through everything that’s bombarding me, demanding my immediate attention.
My hands are still in Rogan’s, but both of us have stopped chanting. I look down to find Tad’s healthy pallor is back, and he’s pulling in deep long pulls of air. I try to reach for him, but my hands are trapped in a steely grip. My gaze snaps up, and green eyes are fixed on mine. Rogan stares at me intensely, his own breathing hard and his cheeks flushed.
Did he just see everything I did?
I stare at him for a beat, as though I could read the answer to that question in his gaze, but when Tad gasps and sits up, Rogan releases my hands, and whatever was just happening between us pops like a fragile balloon.
I wrap Tad up in a bone-crushing hug, and Aunt Hillen tackles us both with a sob. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she murmurs over and over again as she checks both of us until she’s satisfied that we’re okay. Tears drip down all of our faces, and we hug and cry and take a moment to just be with each other again.
“Are you okay?” I ask Tad as he separates from our strangleholds. He rubs his hands down his face and musses up his light brown hair.
“Yeah, I think so,” he declares, sounding a bit in shock. “I have a headache, and I feel like I was just struck by nine thousand bolts of lightning, but other than that…” Tad shrugs and gives a small chuckle, and I’m so relieved and overwhelmed by everything that just happened that my water works kick in double time. I don’t miss the slight tremor in Tad’s hands as he drops them to his side.
That was close. Way too fucking close.
“I’m so sorry—” I offer, but Hillen shushes me.
“It wasn’t your fault, Leni. I don’t know who did that, but when I find them, I’m going to rip their heart right out of their chest, like they just tried to do to me. Stupid bastards.”
“Aunt Hillen, such language!” I tease quietly as I wipe my face free of tears. She pinches me playfully and pulls me and Tad back into a tight hug. “What would I do without my babies?” she asks rhetorically, and I sink into the embrace for a moment, needing an extra dose of comfort after what just happened.
My heart is still hammering away against my ribs, and I feel wired with adrenaline. I want to hunt whoever just tried to kill my cousin down and make them suffer. I don’t know what I would have done if Rogan hadn’t been here.
I look up to find him leaning against the side of the apartment, quietly watching our reunion and giving us space to console one another. Hoot is sitting at his feet, leaning against his leg like some drunkard who’s three sheets to the wind but won’t admit it.
“Thank you,” I tell him, my eyes welling up again and my voice thick with gratitude.
“That was meant for you,” he declares simply.
“I know,” I admit, not sure how to process that someone just tried to kill me, and Tad was caught in the crossfire. “Does Magda know anyone powerful enough to create a hex like that?” I ask Hillen.
She shakes her head but looks over at the door thoughtfully. “I’d be shocked if she did. She thinks she’s a big deal in our family, but outside of us, she has no power, holds no sway. She’s inconsequential to the magical community; I don’t think anyone powerful enough to hex like that would pay her or Gwen any mind.”
What she’s saying makes sense, but it does nothing to make me feel better. If not Magda and Gwen, then who?
“It wasn’t designed to kill you,” Rogan states, his green gaze also studying my front door. “It was designed to keep you here, to slow you down. If it had been you, and you were able to break free from the hex, the jinx would have moved slower. Your magic would have naturally put up a fight to keep it from taking over,” he tells me pointedly. “But your cousin doesn’t have any magic at all. His inability to fight off or slow down the jinx turned it lethal. Other than your aunt and cousin, any other enemies?” he asks, fixing a worried look back on me.
A tic in Rogan’s jaw begins, and it’s clear that he’s distressed. He looks as though he didn’t see this coming either. I can only imagine that he’s also thinking of his brother, of what this means for him. I’m sure he didn’t expect for whoever took Elon to find me so fast. Well, that makes two of us. I didn’t think the magical community would have any idea that Ruby had even passed yet, not unless the necromancers are a bunch of gossips.
“Aside from a hairdresser that I gave a bad review to once, I don’t think I have any mortal enemies. She technically never threatened to kill me, just said I would rot in hell for telling people the truth about the yellow highlights she gave me and whatever it was she did to my hair that made it frizzy for a month. But that was a long time ago, and she was definitely a Lesser.”
Hillen gets to her feet, and Rogan is wrapped up in a tight hug before I can even blink. He pats my aunt’s back awkwardly as she showers him with praise and admiration. She starts to tell him something, but a tap on my elbow pulls my attention away.
“So...want to fill me in on who the knight in nicely fitting jeans is?” Tad asks, nudging my shoulder with his.
Relief escapes me in the form of a giggle. I pull Tad in for another hug, so overwhelmingly relieved that he’s okay. I could have never forgiven myself if something would have happened to him. Tad hugs me back, and we stay like that for a minute, wrapped up in the moment where everything is once again okay.