Page 41 of Illusory

Blowing out a breath of air, I closed my eyes and waited, trying and failing not to feel extremely awkward.

“Ignire flamma,” he said, his voice low and self-assured. “Say it.”

“Ignire flamma,” I repeated, sounding flat and bored by the whole thing. I cracked my left eye open to peek at the wick—just in case by some miracle it had actually worked.

It hadn’t.

“Again,” he ordered. “And don’t open your eyes again or it’ll pull you out of focus. Keep repeating the incantation until the words are blurring together. Let it relax your mind. Envision the ember igniting in your mind’s eye, the flame taking shape—the fire responding to your intention.”

Relaxing my expression and the tension in my shoulders, I cleared my mind and focused on his instructions, repeating the two words over and over again until the incantation rang from my lips like a low rumbling hum. Then I envisioned the candle—the flame forming in my mind. I could see the orange and red hues lighting the shadows around it, feel the heat against my skin as the flicker of fire danced against the wick, seemingly bending to my will.

I held the image in my mind, watching it come alive and then orchestrating it like a symphony of light that only I had the power to control. The longer I played with it, the realer it felt, as though it were actually—

“You’re doing it,” hissed Caleb, the excitement in his tone jolting me out of my trance.

My eyes popped open and landed on the candle. Thelitcandle. I stared at it unflinching, certain that if I so much as blinked at it, the flame would disappear.

Holy fuck. I actually did it.On purpose.

Unfortunately, my unblinking awe was abruptly destroyed by a crushing wave of exhaustion that slammed into my body like a wrecking ball from hell, draining my energy and turning every muscle in my body to jelly.

My palms shot down against the floor before me, barely having enough time to brace myself enough to stop my body from crumbling to the ground like waste.

“Wha—what’s happening to me?” I asked as an icy chill rolled over me.

“What’s happening is you just invoked your affinity for fire. Thanks to me, of course,” he added smugly as he brushed imaginary lint from his shoulders.

If I’d had enough energy to do it, I would have bopped him in the forehead…or at least rolled my eyes at him. “I got that part, but why do I feel like I just got hit by a truck? I think…I think something’s wrong,” I said, trying not to panic and overreact while simultaneously failing at it miserably.

Caleb chuckled as though I were being funny. “You’re fine, Blackburn. You just have thebends,” he answered matter-of-factly, as though that was supposed to make me feel better.

“The bends? What the hell are the bends?”

“It’s kind of like a magic-induced flu. It’s completely normal. Using innate magic can be pretty taxing on your body—especially at the beginning,” he explained with the kind of smirk that let me know he didn’t have this particular problem whenheused his magic. “Because your body gets drained so easily, it doesn’t really know how to metabolize all the extra nitrogen you produce when calling up your magic. It gets better with practice, though. You just need to rest up and give your magic some time to recharge.”

“Oh. Okay. Rest up. Right. Got it.” I breathed a sigh of relief at the news that I wasn’t spontaneously dying on my dining room floor, but it did nothing to ease the fatigue or aches still ravaging my body. Unable to keep fighting the weighty pull, I succumbed to gravity and hit the floor.

Magic-induced or not, this was definitely unlike any flu I’d ever felt before. Every bone and muscle in my body throbbed as though I’d just run a 10K marathon and my head felt like thunder was cracking inside my skull. Even my blood seemed to be screaming out in pain.

“So, uh, what’s the charge time for this kind of magic anyway?” I asked him, needing a ballpark figure for how long I would be feeling like this.

“It depends,” he said vaguely, eyeing me as I rolled into the fetal position. “Could be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.”

“A few hours?” I shrieked. That was completely unacceptable.

“At most a day,” he went on, making the matter even worse.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“If it’s any consolation, it won’t always be like this,” he said, his voice rising with forced enthusiasm. “The longer you use your ability and practice, the less taxing it becomes on your body.”

That wasn’t the kind of consolation I was looking for. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly have the luxury of time at the moment.” Not today and probably not anywhere in the near future either.

“Right.” He paused. “You can always try drawing from another source of power to recharge in a pinch,” he added warily, as though he weren’t sure whether he should be sharing that bit of information with me.

I craned my head to look up at him, my interest piqued. “What kind of source?”

“Usually from another Supe—preferably someone very powerful. Not that I’m suggesting you do that,” he quickly clarified. “Siphoning isn’t an easy skill to pick up. It takes time to learn how to draw from another being’s energy source without, you know, accidently draining them.”

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