Page 59 of Until the Stars Fall

As I stood to the side and held the grimoire for them to read the spell from, Summer and Beck stood outside the extra salt circle he laid around the shield generator this morning. The spell itself took five minutes, and as they finished, the salt circle glowed once, twice, and went dark.

“Think it took?” Summer asked, eyeing the salt circle like she expected it to have done more.

“Yeah, I think it did.” He released her hands and stepped back, watching the shield generator for a moment more. “It felt right, looks right. All I need to do now is strengthen the electrical system to take the drain. We’ll only have emergency lighting overnight during the wormhole, but the spell’ll help the systems exchange more freely.”

“Good,” she said. “You’ve got it, right? I’ve got some more to do on the bridge with Eyre to prep for the passage.”

“All good.” He gave her a thumb’s up. “I’ll head up and do it now.”

Summer did a little dance on her way past me, squeezing my arm for a moment. “I can’t believe we’re almost there!”

I winced. I’d stay in this liminal space forever, if I could. On this ship, loving Beck, and never having to face what waited for me on Gaia

Beck tossed his head toward the electrical panel catwalk. “C’mon and help me out with the spell.”

I paused, my finger on the page in the grimoire. “No, no, no. This is too important.”

“We’ll do it together,” he pleaded, wrapping his arms around me. “I know you can do this.”

I shook my head. “I agreed to help you set it up, and that’s all. Let’s call Eyre, or Hannah, or Zola. Anybody but me.” I pulled free and pushed the grimoire into his hands, but he pushed it right back.

“Now come on, don’t be shy,” he teased. “It only needs one witch, but it’ll be stronger with the two of us. I’m here to help you. What could go wrong?”

I grimaced. “Why did you have to say that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just tryin’ to help you be more comfortable with your magic. You haven’t done much in a couple of days, and I don’t want you to get back in the bad habit of bottling it up. You need to use it.”

I took a deep breath, unable to argue with that. Maybe I could do this. Maybe if I believed in myself the way that Beck believed in me, I could do this small spell with him.

I nodded. “I’ll try.”

He kissed me. “And look, you’re wearing your necklace I gave you. It’ll be good luck.”

Up on the electrical catwalk, he and I had already placed the candles and drawn the sigil on the floor. Now he blew on the candles to light them while I poured salt over the outlines of the sigil, careful not to mar the design.

We sat cross-legged on either side of the little spell, and he took my hands. “Reach inside for your magic,” he instructed, “and think about the intention of the spell.”

I took a deep breath. Within, my magic stirred immediately, like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. Beck’s magic slipped into my hands like a natural, arousing high, and my magic surged forward to meet it. A white glow bloomed from our joined hands.

“Recite the words with me. Rewae chern dlaew.”

I joined in on his second repetition and shifted my hands with him like he taught me. My magic buzzed through my palms, and white light beamed from our hands toward the sigil, reflecting off the columned facets of the clear quartz at the center of the circle. My intentions, my magic, discovered the purpose of the spell. Smooth transitions of lightning erupted in my imagination, zipping back and forth between two systems, which each lit up at the approach, dimmed at the leaving, sharing the power.

But as I recited the last repetition with him, doubt crept in. If I didn’t do this right…what if something went wrong with the electricity? What if I did it right, but I still hurt someone? Something was wrong with me, not just my magic. Why was I doing magic at all? How did I let him talk me into this?

The glow from my hands fizzled out when the line was completed. We sat in silence, watching the candles’ flames for the check he’d built into the spell to ensure it’d taken. The flames on the candles lowered, then one by one, they flared and lowered again around in a circle, one candle to the next.

Relief rushed through me. “Oh thank God.” But before the circuit was complete, one of the candles snuffed out.

At the zapping of a power surge, Beck sprang into action. Emergency lights came on. Sirens blared. The ship lurched to the side, throwing me against the metal railing. Panic gripped me as a series of other sirens wailed, and the lights in the room flashed red. Metal clunked somewhere behind me, and my body began to rise.

Beck jammed his ankle under the railing, reaching across to the panel, desperately flipping switches. I grabbed onto the railing to keep from floating away as he reset the parameters on the panel and quickly shouted the spell three times.

After a terrifying few seconds that felt like minutes, the artificial gravity kicked back in, and everything returned to normal. Except for the impending doom rattling my heart in my chest.

I settled back to the ground, gripping the railing, my magic spooled up and ready to act, tears streaming down my face. The machines around us hummed beautifully, and the circle of candles raised and lowered around in their circle, circuit complete.

He caught sight of me on the floor and rushed over. “Are you alright?”

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