Page 32 of Bright Soul

She closed out the ritual with one last phrase. I focused on my breathing and the runes around us. The chalk turned colors…black around Wren, silver for Ben, and gold for me. A sign of success as I rode out the sensation of the worst heartburn of my life.

Ben was grinning, flexing his hands with anticipation. “You don’t feel hot?” I asked.

It was Jordan’s fingers that landed on my forehead first. “You have too much magic in you. Try this.” She had me hold out myhand and cast a power-level-one celestial spell, Lumen. My palm heated and projected a gentle flashlight-level of brightness.

I gaped at it as the heat within me calmed over the duration I held the spell, which was easily canceled by shaking out my hand. “It worked,” I said with a little disbelieving laugh. “Quick, teach Ben a level-one spell!”

I felt a soft probe of my awareness.“And even better news, you are still a librarian,”Braza told me privately while Ben learned to throw off sparks by snapping his fingers.

We laughed and hugged, and I think Wren hid a little teary moment when she successfully swirled motes of moonlight around her fingertips. She covered her mouth with one hand and took up her scepter with the other, lighting it with a glow of soft silver.

“It’s so easy,” she whispered.

“Will you tell me your idea now?”I asked Braza.

“Very soon, brightest of souls. The hour grows late, and you must practice with one magic before I empower the other.”She projected a sensation of pride.“You are one of the strongest witches I have had the chance to witness in my time. No wonder you are fated to my prince.”

14

GEO

While Cress and Ben engaged in their ritual, I separated myself from them for our mutual sanity. If Cress wanted to explore her magic…who was I to stop her? She was fairly certain it would be fine, and Ben was more confident still.

Rather than loom over them, I went to my evening post. I was staying in stone form longer and longer by necessity, not consuming valuable rations and not sleeping when our enemies were sniffing around the library at night.

In fact, it was irresponsible for me to take human form…but I craved it. Even as I stood sentry in the shadows of the library’s first floor, I ached within to transform back and hold my love through the night once I was sure she was okay.

No.I had a duty.

Andno, that duty wasn’t waiting in the same room as her ritual. It was ensuring her safety, as I was doing. She could rest easy knowing that no unnaturals had slipped into the lower floors of the library, because I was standing guard.

Someone else would have to be tasked with this if I abandoned my post. They could fall asleep while keeping watch. Everyone in our little group was in some stage of exhaustion and hurt at this point. Most of our various wounds resulted from careless mistakes no one made when we first started clearing the library.

I just wished Cress would come up here and tell me how her ritual went. Maybe spend some time with me before she went to bed.

I didn’t shift my considerable stone weight side to side, but I realized after an hour that I wasbored. I had never been bored in this form before. Could I still be considered a patient rock if boredom was leaking into me from my human side?

Had I truly changed so quickly to be considering this question during an ongoing crisis?

Hmm, yes. For better or worse, this was Cress’s doing as well. I would never be an unfeeling stone construct again with duty my only comfort. I loved my woman too much to revert to that state.

Glass crunched under someone’s tread, drawing my focus. “Halt. Identify yourself,” I stated without hesitation. I already had one quartz spike primed and ready to fire should I have announced myself to a roaming unnatural.

“Geo?” answered Grant’s uncertain voice. “It’s me, your favorite changeling.”

“You are the only changeling I know,” I said.

“That you’re aware of,” he said with a lilt of playfulness. I decided he sounded unapologetically like Grant and tilted my crystal shield, letting it reflect what little light remained outside from a distant streetlight so he knew where I was standing. The library was completely dark to discourage unnatural scavengers.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I asked.

His outline approached, and he felt for the stack closest to me. “Depends. Did you find it funny?” Only now did I notice the hitch in his voice and how he stumbled and held his side. “Áine hasn’t figured me out yet, right? She’ll heal me?”

“She has more pressing matters than your secret identity,” I confirmed. “What happened?”

I saw the impression of his bright teeth bared in a grimace. “Turns out it’s nigh impossible to spy on someone who eats every supernatural placed in front of her. Still, I saw a glimpse of some real shit, my stony friend, and then the monsters discovered me.”

“Were you followed?” I demanded.

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