Page 65 of Fool Me Twice

They’re not just working towards a shared goal this time, each of them attacking the mega-rifts from a separate angle. No, they’re working towards a sharedspell.The difference might be subtle, but it lights up all of Ez’s nerves at once, making her skin feel electrified and her bones feel as light as air.

And dual spellcasting is rare. Ez herself almost never dabbled in it before recently. Doubling the number of spellcasters means doubling the amount of risk, because if one of them messes up an aspect of the casting, the adverse effects can be shared‍—and magnified‍—between both of them.

But, with a skilled and trusted partner, team-tag spellcasting can become more than the sum of its parts. It allows the strengths of both practitioners to shine through and amplify each other, letting them access spells they couldn’t otherwisecast and share power that would traditionally be impossible to attain.

Dual spellcasting might be rare, but with Roma, Ez can see the appeal of it.

They only end their practice run a few beats out of sync, Roma stumbling the slightest bit on the last line. Not a huge deal for a typical incantation, but for a spell involving the Deep, they need to be perfect. “Again?” Ez prompts softly.

“I think so,” Roma agrees quietly. “One, two, three‍—from the depths to the sky…”

“From the depths to the sky…”

This time, they end the spell in perfect unison, their voices rising and falling and fading out together. Roma checks the position of the sun before meeting Ez’s eyes. “One more practice round,” she says, “and then for real.”

Ez’s throat feels dry. “Sounds good. One, two, three‍—from the depths…”

“… to the sky…”

Another perfect match. Ez swallows hard past the fluttery sensation in her belly. Even though she’s met countless spellcasters, both demon and human, over her almost two hundred fifty years, she’s never found anyone who took the gift of magic quite as seriously as she did, who nurtured it and treasured it and polished it until it shone like a jewel.

Not until Roma Gutierrez, at least. Ez takes a deep breath. “This time for real?” she whispers.

Roma’s voice is barely a breath. “Okay. Count us off?”

“One… two… three,” Ez murmurs, and she lets power flow through her body, swirling past her fingertips and down into the earth below them. “From the depths to the sky…”

Roma’s voice merges with Ez’s just as easily as ever, their timing and cadence falling smoothly into line. Ez’s magic swells and pulses through her veins as they work through theincantation, reaching a crescendo just before the final words. A split second after she pushes the spell down into the Deep, a jolt of feedback rattles up her arms, shocking her system and forcing her eyes open wide.

The Deep is stirring. And, from what Ez can tell, it doesn’t like being kept awake. Her eyes snap to Roma, who looks just as stunned as Ez feels. “That was it?” Roma whispers, a thread of awe twining through her voice. “That was the Deep?”

Ez’s eyebrows furrow. “You’ve never felt it before?”

Roma shakes her head. “The Sanctum always warned us not to meddle with it. Told us to draw our magic from anywhereexceptthe ground beneath our feet. Hunters tend to have a… high mortality rate when accessing the Deep.”

Ez leans forward, intrigued. “I’ve tapped into the Deep a handful of times before. After a few centuries, you learn how to be polite to the old magic, and it generally returns the favor. What does…?” She hesitates, considering her question. “What does it feel like to you?”

For a long moment, Roma’s eyes search Ez’s.

And then she says, “Beautiful. It feels beautiful.”

Ez’s heart shivers. “It is,” she agrees softly. “But it shouldn’t feel like it’s moving. It normally feels quiet, like your entire soul could wash over it without disturbing it. Right now, though, it feels active.”

“Like it’s causing the epidemic, you mean.”

It’s not a question, but Ez nods anyway. “Exactly. It feels like the Deep keeps opening the mega-rifts because it’s specifically signaling for an outside force to cast the counterspell. That’s why it’s caught in this infinite loop‍—it can only restabilize itself if someone activates theexactreversal using the Deep’s magic.” She winces. “And the power threshold to access that magic feels a lot higher than usual, too. Honestly, I don’t even think Obie and I could hit that, and he has power to spare. That means we’lldefinitely need the synergy of demon and human magic together to make it work.”

Roma’s lips twist down in the corners. “So our question now is how to manage all that.”

“Well, hypothetically, wedoknow how to manage it,” Ez says. “All we have to do is figure out the original rift-opening spell, build a point-by-point counterspell, and risk life and limb using the Deep’s magic to activate it.”

Roma snorts. “Right. That’s ‘all’ we have to do.”

“The path forwardissimple,” Ez says. “That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though.”

“But we can do it,” Roma says, lifting her chin to meet Ez’s eyes. “You and me. We can pull it off, right?”

And somehow‍?—

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