Page 83 of Her Dreadful Will
Achan latched onto her wrist and drew her back into the shade, his face sober. “Don’t overdo it. Smashing things is fun, sure, but you need to be careful with it. Let’s move on to phase two—putting that first brick back together.”
Soleil stared at the decomposed particles. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Just try. Think about how the brick looked a few minutes ago, how each bit of it was connected to the others. You still have all the components here.”
Soleil crouched, spreading her palms over the little pile of sand. She concentrated, sent out tendrils of magic, tried to lift the particles—but nothing happened. She couldn’t hear any music from this mass of jumbled bits, just a cacophony of ruination.
“Construction is harder than destruction, for sure.” Achan crouched beside her. “But don’t think of this as rebuilding something from scratch. You don’t have to work so hard at it. It’s more like—like rewinding what you did. With chaos magic, things can be unwound and rewound, disassembled and reassembled, as long as you have all the parts still available to you. It’s hard to explain.”
He flexed his fingers over the sandy remnants, and they rebuilt before Soleil’s eyes, particles gathering and arranging themselves until she was looking at the half-brick he’d first handed her.
“You make it look so easy,” she said, picking up the brick and hefting it.
“I siphoned away the magic you used to disassemble it,” he said. “So, with that force gone, it returned to its previous state. Unfortunately that method only works if the magic used on the object hasn’t dissipated yet.”
“But—how—how did you know how to put all the pieces of the brick back, exactly as they were?”
“I didn’t need to know,” he said. “Itknew.”
“But when you fixed my car, you couldn’t have simply sucked magic out. Magic didn’t cause its problems—age and use did that.”
“True. That was a different scenario. Instead of undoing another witch’s magic and taking in that energy, I had to siphon raw, natural chaos into myself. But in that case too, the car knew what it needed to be. It remembered how its parts should function, how they worked before there was rust and decay. I just returned it to its original state. No mechanical knowledge required.”
“So your magic is like time travel. You’re rewinding time for a specific object.”
He cocked his head. “From a certain point of view—I guess you could say that.”
“It’s exactly that. You’re undoing its natural decline.”
Soleil bent over the remains of the second brick she’d destroyed. She caught the edges of the magic she’d used—the wisps of it still hanging in the air—and she tried to suck them back into herself, but they resisted, slipping from her grasp, and she couldn’t discern them again. Her focus was lost, and she was tired, and hot.
“Enough for today?” Achan asked.
“I think so. I hate that I couldn’t do much.”
“Couldn’t do much?” His laugh was short with disbelief. “You were amazing.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” She made her way back through the trees, sweeping branches aside and batting at hovering flies.
“No, I mean it. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to feel the brick at all. Of course it’s easier to sense the potential decay of something that has already been unmade and remade, like bricks, or clothing, or metal. It’s much harder with items that have been themselves for a long, long time, like rocks, or elements constantly in flux, like water or fire. I can’t do much with those, except stir them up a little. That’s about it.”
“One of my friends from the Institute does spectral magic—working with light,” said Soleil. “She’s desperate to get a job in the movie business.”
“Is she?” His answer was so stiff and noncommittal that she glanced back. She’d expected him to be more interested.
He was looking away from her, off the path. But she could see nothing of interest except the shadowy green depths of the forest, so alluring, promising cool air and refreshment. Part of her wanted to run off the path into the embrace of the deep woods; but another part of her, a louder and more anxious part, warned against ticks and poison ivy and thorny vines.
“You can change living things, too,” she said. “Like the tree you altered, that first day you showed me your magic. And you did something to Florence’s mind.”
His gaze snapped to hers, caution flaring in his eyes. “That’s delicate work, Sol. Not something you’ll be ready for soon. You shouldn’t try it.”
“You really think I’d go messing around in people’s bodies or brains, after I couldn’t even put a brick back together?” She glared at him. “I’m not stupid. I was just asking.”
“No, of course I don’t—you’re so excited about this, I thought maybe—I’m sorry.” He winced apologetically. “I know you’re smarter than that. You care too much to risk someone’s physical or mental health.”
Soleil’s glare faded. The tang of guilt soured the back of her throat. “I’ve risked the mental health of the townspeople, trying to change them too quickly,” she said. “All because I want to be a Highwitch. In that respect, I’ve already broken my vow through selfishness.” The realization seized her like a choking hand at her throat. “This entire thesis of mine—it disproves itself. Because it’s based on whatIwant. The whole experiment is a selfish one, for my own gain.”
The waking of that truth was too much; it crushed her inside. She braced one hand against a tree, leaning over and trying to drag in a deep breath. She could only take shallow sips of air, her body sweating and trembling.
