Page 59 of Evil Eyed
I didn’t turn my head to look, but now that I remembered I’d been holding the stone, I could feel it against my palm. My hand curled around the stone, holding it over my heart.:Yes.:
“What is this place?” My voice echoed off the silvery floor. Ripples formed in its surface, flowing outward like gentle waves. Stepping closer to the edge of the medallion, I bent down and touched the silver with my left hand. Not water—it was thicker. The substance coated my finger, but when I tried to shake it off, it rolled into a ball and danced across the back of my knuckles like mercury.
“See, lady? Magic clings to you even here.”
“This is magic?” I raised my hand closer, watching the way the tiny ball moved and flowed. It didn’t feel like the ribbons and swirls of magic when the wheel spun in my head. This tiny ball had substance, and it didn’t glow or spark.
Glittering emeralds. Soft, warm gold. Sparkling rainbows. My kind of magic. My kind of love. Where was that in this dismal, silent place?
“Pure source, from which all magic flows. It feels amazing, does it not?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant—until the blob sank into my skin. One second it rolled like a tiny ball, and the next, it felt like I’d taken a shot of heroin. My eyes flared. Every hair on my body stood at attention, vibrating with sudden energy and awareness. I could feel the individual cells in my body, sparking and flowing, pulses of electricity communicating with each other. Nerves like complex highways and rivers, flowing with data and power. Thoughts rippled through my mind laser fast.
:I’m standing in a pool of magic. It’s endless, like an ocean. It goes on forever. He said it’s the source of magic.:
“So much power,” Boss Man crooned.
:No walls,:I continued passing along information rapid fire to the guys. :No doors. No way out. I don’t know where it’s coming from or why it’s here.:
“Soon, all the worlds will belong to me. They fall, one by one, descending just as you did to reach my eye. Only by the time those worlds reach this level, they’re distilled into their purest forms.”
A larger silver ball slowly slid down from the darkness above, approximately the size of a grapefruit. It slipped into the silver lake without a single sound, though ripples rolled from where it’d disappeared.
“Some worlds garner more magic than others.”
“That was an entireworld?”
“Only what was left of their magic,” Boss Man replied, his tone remaining casual and matter-of-fact. “Most of the magic is gone now through all the dimensions. Very little remains.”
My brain grappled with the implications. An entire world reduced to a grapefruit. Destroyed for its magic. All this magic, pooling in the eye.
Hiseye.
Very little magic remained.
I didn’t need to reach for my treasures and leprechaun to know that was a lie. Magic flowed all around us. I’d seen the wonders of Warwick’s Summer Isle with my own eyes. I’d been painting magic for years before the changeling damaged me.
If Evil Eye took the painting that Warwick had stashed away and distilled it into silver essence, how big a splash would it make in this never-ending lake? Let alone all of Faerie.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Why am I here?”
“You’re the conduit. You pull magic through you effortlessly and naturally, which would make all of this easier.”
All of this… Did he mean destroying worlds and dimensions so he could distill their magic into his eye? “I don’t want to destroy anything.”
He laughed, a deep belly chuckle that echoed and bounced over the silvery surface. “Ah, lady, you are a pure delight. Of course you want to destroy things. Look at how you destroyed the Slaughterer just a few moments ago. Look at what you’ve done to Greenshanks, shackling him into a harem of other men, none of which will ever own your heart.”
My throat tightened, tears burning my eyes. “My heart is theirs. I love them. All of them.”
“I’m sure you do. At least with what’s left after the changeling ravaged you. Why, I’m shocked that you’re still alive.” A deliberate pause. “Let alone that you’re able to love five men after what he must have done to you.”
Pain choked me but worse was the shame. Shame that I had been trapped and hurt and unable to escape. Jonathan had damaged me. I’d never be the same. My capacity to love…
Is still whole.
He told me lies again, trying to make me doubt myself. My capacity to love had not been destroyed. I’d been damaged, but my men had shown me truth and love and light. I’d healed from those years in darkness. I didn’t have a fragile hand-blown glass heart. No, my heart was made of stone and steel and blazed with all the power of the sun. It hungered for my men and their touch, reveled in their pleasure, and then showered them with love and power.
Pure gold burned in my heart, and a leprechaun’s oath on his gold was unbreakable.
