All of a sudden, Macy gasps at the same time the crystal in my hand starts to burn superhot. I cry out, trying to hold on to it, but the heat gets more and more severe with each second that passes, until I have no choice but to open my fingers. For one second, two, the crystal lays flat against my palm and then it starts to rise, floating higher and higher above our heads until it floats into the athame’s path.
The others’ crystals do the same thing until they line up between the athame and the sky in rainbow order. The second the last crystal slides into place, lightning shoots through the sky and slams straight into the crystals and through them into Macy’s athame.
I cry out at the sudden flash and heat of it, but Macy doesn’t so much as gasp. She just holds the athame steady even as the lightning links up to it and then shoots out, making a giant circle that wraps around us all.
Sand and water rise up around us, a sudden wind whipping them into a tornado until we’re surrounded on all sides by sand and water and wind and lightning—all four of the elements coming together through Macy.
She starts to shake, her entire body lighting up with the strength of the elements whipping through her. Soon her clothes are plastered to her body, her hair stands on end, and her very skin seems to be glowing from within. She reaches out to me then, grabs my hand, and I feel it, all of the energy from the elements—from the natural world around us—flowing from her into me.
It’s powerful, painful, so overwhelming that I nearly break away from her—until I realize that she needs me. That the energy is too much for her to contain on her own and she’s funneling it through me, through my gargoyle, because I can absorb it, the power of the magic sliding through me but not hurting me at all.
So I hold tight to her hand, let her funnel everything that she needs to straight into me. And when a second blast of lightning cracks across the sky, I don’t so much as flinch, even when it links up with the first.
Seconds pass, filled with incredible, unbelievable power, and then there’s another giant flash. This one lights up the entire sky, spreads over the water, over the clearing, over us, until there is no more crater.
Until there is no more rock.
Until there is no more us, only the light and energy and air that we’ve become.
105
Fall from Grace
We hit the ground screaming, every single one of us, as the light molecules we traveled on band together to re-form our bodies. It’s painful and weird and a little bit terrifying, but it takes only a few seconds, and then I’m struggling to absorb the pain and get my breath back.
“What time is it?” I demand as I stagger to my feet and look around at my friends, all of whom are still curled up and moaning on the snow. I reach for my phone, but it’s dead. I throw it and scream, “What time is it, goddammit?”
Rosy streaks of dawn are starting to work their way across the sky, and panic is a living, breathing animal within me. I didn’t come this far just to fail because we’re too late. We can’t be too late.
Please God, we can’t be too late.
“It’s six fifty,” Flint groans as he rolls over, his phone clutched in his hand.
“Six fifty,” I whisper. I’d checked sunrise before we left, and we still have time. “True sunrise is at eight twenty. We have an hour and a half.”
I look at Jaxon and the others, all of whom continue to lie on the snow despite my announcement. None of whom seems to understand the sudden urgency we’re facing. “We have ninety minutes!” I yell as I look around, trying to figure out exactly where on the Katmere grounds we are.
Macy pushes herself to her feet, and she looks as bad as I feel. Maybe worse. “Okay, okay, okay.” She glances around, too, rubs a hand over her face. “The amphitheater is that way. We just need to get out of these trees.”
“Come on,” I say, pulling at Jaxon, who definitely isn’t looking very good right now. Then again, I’m pretty sure the same can be said about me.
Flint rolls to his feet and helps me get Jaxon on his, but now that it’s not as dark as at the gargoyle’s cave, I can see just how bad his leg is. “You can’t walk any farther on that,” I tell him. “You have to stay here, and we’ll send help.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Eden says. “Him and Xavier.”
But as soon as she says that, I look around for Xavier’s body and realize he’s not here. “We left him,” I whisper in horror. “We left him there on the beach.”
“No,” Macy says. “No, we didn’t.”
“He’s not here,” Eden says, running for the closest trees. “Where is he? Oh my God, where is he?”
“He’s light,” Macy says, and her voice is thick with tears as she looks up at the ever-lightening sky. “We’re still alive, so we could re-form back into our bodies. He wasn’t, so my life-force magic couldn’t work on him. He’s gone.” She starts to cry. “He’s really gone.”
I want to cry with her, want nothing more than to sit my weary, aching body down on this snow and sob like a child as guilt racks me. But I can’t do that. We can’t do that, not yet. Not when we have to be inside the arena in ninety minutes.
“I’m sorry, but we have to go,” I tell Macy. “I can’t do this on my own. I need you to come with me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She dashes her hands across her cheeks to dry her tears. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
“I’m sorry, Macy.” Jaxon’s voice is low and hoarse with pain.
My cousin just nods. I mean, what else is there to actually say?
Eden and Flint wish us luck as we take off across the snow, stumbling a little under the weight of tiredness and injuries. But at least Macy’s right. Once we break through the forest of trees we landed in, the arena looms huge over the landscape.
I glance at Jaxon’s phone. We have eighty-five minutes to get inside. That doesn’t leave much time for us to rest once we get settled by the field, but it’s enough. That’s all that matters.
“Go straight through there,” Macy tells us, pointing to the closest entrance. “I’m going to find help, see if I can get Marise or someone to come out with me to try to help Flint. I’ll also grab some blood for Jaxon and get to the arena as soon as I possibly can.”
I don’t have the energy to answer her, so I just nod as I continue to trudge across the snow, Jaxon’s arm draped over my shoulders so I can support some of his weight. I’m tired, so tired, and every single bone in my body hurts.