How was that even possible?
She didn’t understand how Topher had placed power into his enchantment, only that he had managed to bridge it to himself in some way. If she could use it . . .
If she could use it, then she might be able to find some way to cross the distance between her and Topher with the power held within the coin. She might be able to reach him.
If nothing else, she could let him know she was still alive.
Jayna traced her fingers along the pattern on the coin, squeezing it between her hands. She closed her eyes, trying to reach for him as the coin continued to vibrate, but regardless of how long she sat there, there was no response.
She was still trapped.
19
Jayna drifted, dreams of her brother coming back to her, though in these dreams there was a dark energy surrounding him, closing in on him, starting to prey upon him. It seemed as if somebody stalked him, and nothing Jayna said mattered. Despite how much she cried out to him, he remained ignorant of the power around him. There was nothing she could do to get to him.
She woke, shivering, cold for the first time that she could remember while living in Nelar. The air within the cell had gotten much colder.
Jayna got to her feet, looking around her.
It was an unusual enchantment to turn the air cool like that, and more than that, it made it unpleasant for her. She still felt the vibration from the coin, and Jayna squeezed it again, still wondering if there might be some way for her to reach across the distance, to focus her power and contact Topher, though any awareness she might have of him seemed to be too difficult for her to reach. She had to remove whatever barricade this cell placed around her to tap into her Toral power. It was there. They hadn’t taken it from her. She would’ve known if they had.
The coin was the key. Unlike other enchantments, this one was still active.
Not only that, but the entire cell was enchanted in a certain way. She could use its power, as she could feel it flowing through her; she just had to gain a hold of it.
She squeezed on the coin again.
How could she reach him?
Somehow, she needed to link to the enchantment within the coin.
Though she couldn’t perform much magic of her own at this point, perhaps a linking spell would work, as it barely required any. It had also been the very first use of magic she had uncovered at the Academy. Why couldn’t she use it now? The magic of the spell was straightforward. It was just a matter of pulling across a distance.
But what about her connection to Char? Might she be able to use that to get his attention?
The sense of him had changed.
It had been subtle at first, but gradually got to the point that she could feel his presence in the back of her mind again, though much fainter than she was accustomed to. The shift within that linking spell had been so slow that she hadn’t even considered it.
Could he know she was here?
It was so faint that it was like pulling on a thin filament in the back of her mind.
She worried that she’d sever the link if she pulled too hard.
She closed her eyes and focused on the linking spell, then plucked at it gently, trying to get his attention. There was no response.
She tried again—but again, no real response.
There had to be some way for her to tap into that connection and find a way to reach through the distance. It was almost like the barrier that had been placed over her access to magic also somehow prevented her from reaching him.
Topher’s coin still vibrated and she turned her attention back to it, squeezing it and feeling for its energy within. If Topher could reach for her across the distance, then maybe she could reach him.
That was what she had to focus on now: linking to the coin.
Jayna had given up trying to use her own magic, but dular power was different. She had known that. The magic required to create enchantments was different from what sorcerers used. What if she could somehow use the power within the enchantment for herself?
She focused on the coin and it vibrated. She had to find a way to draw from Topher’s power inside of it.
She could feel it. It wasn’t nearly as much energy as she would normally draw upon, but there was something there. Now she just had to use it.
It was as if she were borrowing some distant source of magic. It came across that distance, through the connection she shared with the coin, though faintly.
Jayna attempted to create a spell, but it didn’t react the way she needed it to. She didn’t have enough power.
But maybe she could try something else.
Jayna thought perhaps she could use the coin to help her tap into the dragon stone energy, but nothing changed when she attempted to draw through the stone.
That wasn’t going to work.
Help.
That was what she needed.
Why did she need to try to do this on her own?
She only needed to use the power within the coin and try to communicate through it. There was enough power for that, she thought.
She closed her eyes, thinking about the linking spell she shared with Char. Could she draw the power from the coin and use that to tap into her connection with him? Even if she could, would there be anything he would do?
Probably not.
He wasn’t going to take action against Master Agnew.
He might not even believe she was here.
Jayna didn’t know if would be able to reach him, and even if she did, she didn’t know if it would make any difference. She needed to find a different kind of help—and the kind of help she thought she needed was the kind that had attacked the outpost before.
Ashara. Which meant getting Eva.
She didn’t understand why this enchantment was still active when the others were not, but it connected her to Topher.
She focused. If this subtle, simple pattern worked, she would only need to pour a hint of power into it to create enough of a linking spell to reach across the distance and get Topher’s attention.
She pushed power into the coin.
It involved layering an enchantment over an enchantment.
Jayna had no idea if such a thing was possible, but she remembered the shield she had seen in Telluminder’s shop, and if there were layered enchantments on that, then why couldn’t she do something similar?
There was no reason she couldn’t.
No reason she shouldn’t.
Jayna focused, letting power flow into the coin.
All she needed now was a way to tap into the enchantment.
She relaxed.
The linking spell took hold and the vibration stopped. Jayna hesitated, still squeezing on the coin. She worried she had changed something within it that might take away her ability to use it to communicate with Topher, but then the vibration shifted to a different frequency—a fluctuating buzzing that she could hear.
“Topher?”
There was no response.
Jayna tried something else.
The coin was vibrating to her, trying to communicate. She needed to create a buzzing within the coin, something that would vibrate and allow her to respond to Topher.
She pushed through the coin and the buzzing shifted.
She pushed again, this time being intentional about how she did it, and focused on his name, tracking that through her power.
“Topher,” she said, adding that into the spell and trying to communicate to him.
“Jayna?” His voice came strangely. It seemed to fill her mind, as if he were coming up through the coin, before reaching her ears. “How is this possible?”