Page 28 of Broken Rejected Mate

Too much time passes, but she’s patient, waiting for my answer.

“I…” I finally manage to choke out. “I don’t know just yet. I need some time to think it through.”

“Sure,” she says, though I can still hear the disappointment in her tone. She plays with the damp sleeve of her shirt, rolling and unrolling it. “Of course. Take all the time you need, dear.”

***

This day has already been too long, but I promised Dorian I would start on the project as soon as I had my things from Willow. This morning, after Emin handed them over to me, I used my growing energy to cast on them, hiding them in thatguest room so he couldn’t find them unless he had his own powerful caster on his side, looking.

Now, I’m in the pack hall again, following the caster with the red hair as she leads me through the building, scanning her badge on various doors. Emin trails behind us, still insisting it’s safer for us if he’s here.

“You’re looking better,” the caster says, as I try to remember her name. “The swelling has gone down quite a bit. Did you notice a dip in your power while healing?”

“Yes,” I admit, though I don’t want to, especially not with Emin behind us. She nods and pushes through a final door, delivering us into what feels like a different world.

While the rest of the pack hall looks straight out of 2003—all beige walls and old, patterned carpet—this room is lush with leather furniture. A large stone fireplace is on the other wall, and the far wall is lined with books that even from here, I can tell are magical tomes.

“Wow,” Sarina says—and I finally remember the caster’s name.

Claire’s cheeks redden, and she shrugs, practically brushing away the compliment. “Dorian said I could decorate how I wanted.”

“This is…” I nod, pressing my lips together.

Emin laughs, “Well, you should do the rest of the place.”

Claire laughs, too, then gestures for me to follow her back through. Touching Sarina’s shoulder, I say, “Don’t touch anything.”

Sarina nods, but keeps her head on a swivel, taking everything in.

“Right back here is where we’re working on our project,” Claire says, and we come up to a table in the corner of the room, strewn with various black gems and rocks. While some of them look somewhat similar to Amanzite, anyone familiar with the stone can easily note from first glance that none of them are the real thing.

Amanzite is a smooth rock, and most of the items on the table look more like crystal, jagged and cutting, almost like a rock candy rather than a real stone.

For many of the other attempts, the color is off. Either too transparent, or too opaque. The wrong shade, more blue or purple than black. From the sheer amount of attempts on this table, it’s clear that the casters have been working on this for a while.

No wonder Dorian was willing to get my things in exchange for my help. All this magic must have taken a lot of power, and surely they need their casters for other things.

Claire shows me their current process, and we work on trying to cast a few. I haven’t used generative magic in a while—making something from thin air—and I find myself breathing hard, pushing my hair out of my face, feeling bad for mentally making fun of their attempts so far.

“It’s a whole thing,” Claire laughs, when we work together for twenty minutes and only manage to produce a strange, squishy blue lump. “I’m confident we’ll get it. But, sooner would obviously be better than later.”

“Synthesizing something from magic is rough,” I agree, slumping down in a chair and uncapping a bottle of water. Sarina sits to the side, curled up, solving math equations on one of her worksheets. Emin is in the chair beside her, a book open on his lap. I have to tear my eyes away from them.

“It’s my worst area, actually,” Claire says, then, seeming to think about it, changes her mind. “No, binding. Is generative your worst?”

“Casting? Sure,” for the first time in a while, I think of my grandmother’s gift. She passed shortly before I started seeing Emin. Since the day she passed, I haven’t had time to do anything with it.

“What do you mean?” Claire looks puzzled. I don’t know what it is—maybe the fact that we’re both casters, maybe the fact that I’m so tired I can’t stop myself, but I tell her.

“My grandmother was clairsentient,” I say. “And she passed her gift to me when she died. I’ve never evenhada premonition, so that must be my worst area. I really don’t even know much about it.”

“Wow,” Claire says, shaking her head. Then, she moves quickly, grabbing a pad of paper and scribbling on it. “Here—this is the information for a psychic in town. If you want to work on that.”

I take the paper, stare at the name, then fold it up and tuck it into my pocket. I don’t have the energy right now to think about it.

“Alright,” Claire says, already back on her feet. “Ready to give it another go?”

Chapter 16 - Emin

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