Page 13 of Runaway Magic
“Whatever, Boy.” His aunt’s cheerful voice was more appropriate for chasing down a naughty child rather than supervising an assassination. Stella made the same hand gesture as Sterling had, circling the index finger of her right hand and then putting her hand out.
The dead plants around Cym turned to dust, but once again, he and Fourteen remained unscathed.
“I already tried that one, Stella, and got a big, fat goose egg for my trouble,” Sterling told her, bored arrogance coloring his words.
Cym took a second to check on Fourteen again, who was muttering something that sounded like, “. . . should have seen that coming,” while struggling to pull himself to a sitting position.
“Stay down!” Cym hissed, and when Fourteen didn’t respond, he grabbed his hand to tug the man to the ground. Fourteen flopped over and lay still once more.
While Cym was happy the man was no longer presenting a target, his worry was mounting. How was he going to get Fourteen out of here if he couldn’t remain conscious? Even if Cym found a way to get past his family, Fourteen was far too big to carry.
“How about this one?” Helen asked her companions, and she put her left hand over her right wrist, grasped it, and pulled it sharply to the left.
Cym threw himself on top of Fourteen as several rows of tombstones had their top halves sheared away. He was showeredwith shrapnel and felt small cuts peppering his exposed skin. “Stop that!” His voice rang out over what was left of the cemetery. “There’s a norm here—an innocent! Just let me get him out of here, and I’ll go with you.”
“No . . .” Fourteen groaned underneath him.
“You hush. I’m in charge right now.” Cym patted his cheek gently.
“I think it’s just adorable that our Sunny thinks he’s in any position to bargain right now, don’t you, dears?” Stella put her hands together as if she were about to say a prayer, then drew them up to the sky, parted them and brought them out in a half circle to rest by her side.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe if we do one together?” Helen suggested. The three came together in a huddle.
Cym couldn’t keep relying on whatever miracle was keeping them safe. He had to do something right now. He spied Fourteen’s pack and pulled it out from under his body, hoping it contained something that could help him. Inside, he found a few chunks of a gray, clay-like material, so very many guns, and several different types of ammo that he wouldn’t know how to install even if he did manage to figure out which guns they went with.
When he got to a wicked-looking knife, Cym paused. He could probably manage to poke it into someone if he could get close enough. Of course, the chances he’d poke it into himself instead were much higher.
Then he got an idea. It was probably a terrible one, but it was all he had.
Due to the chaotic nature of his magic, Cym had never been trained, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t do magic. He was still technically a witch even if his family wanted nothing to do with him.
He had often done accidental magic when he was little. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d had a tantrum as a child and turned the contents of his entire room red from anger or knocked over furniture with a random blast of energy. The only reason the building he’d been kept in hadn’t burned down from his accidental fires was because it had dampening spells built into the walls.
Over the years, he had begun to fugue out when his emotions got the better of him rather than explode with accidental magic. Once he escaped, it had been a pain to discard the habit, but he had worked hard to let it go—becoming senseless under stress was the worst thing that could happen to someone on the run.
Cym had gone to the closest library and found a book on stress relief. It suggested methods like meditation or joining a yoga class—something he rejected immediately. Who would want to take a yoga class with him in the room? So he got a book on meditation and learned how to calm his breathing and heart rate. It was hard work, but eventually, he got good enough that he stopped blanking out or having random magical outbursts.
What would happen if he stopped accessing the still, quiet space in his mind earned through meditation techniques? Would it release his magic? Or better yet, what would happen if he let go of the stillness and actually tried to cast a spell?
Cym watched his brother’s hands move in a complicated pattern while he argued with their aunt, trying to explain a spell he thought they should try. It looked too difficult for Cym to recreate, but he had just seen a very easy-looking spell performed twice.
Peering around a headstone, Cym pointed his right hand at his family. He took a deep breath, circled his right index finger, flattened his hand, and pushed it out. The only thing that happened was that his family looked like they’d come to a decision on what nasty thing they wanted to try on him next.
Joining hands, they broke out of the huddle. Stella stood tall and strong. The smug look on her face made Cym think she’d won whatever argument they’d been having.
Sterling stepped away from their aunt and Helen, his face uncertain. “I don’t think this is a good idea. This is exactly the sort of thing that will bringtheirattention down on us. Mother told us to be careful!”
With a scornful glance at Sterling, Stella joined hands with Helen and threw her right hand toward the sky. She barked out a sharp, unintelligible sound and reached her left hand out to point toward the buildings behind the cemetery on Cym’s side.
Cym really needed to get his spellcasting shit together before he and Fourteen were turned to toast. What was Cym missing? Maybe he had to think really hard about wanting it to happen. He tried again and felt a roiling of something pink in his chest, but nothing happened.
Perhaps pointing wasn’t enough—in a lot of the fantasy books he’d read, there had been several components to casting. What were they again?
He bit his lip as he worked to remember. Focus seemed important. Precision too. He was pretty damn focused right now, and he thought he had the hand gesture down, so what else did he need?
There was a violent clap of thunder, and the building behind him came down with a deafening screech. Dust billowed everywhere and bricks and chunks of gods-knew-what began pelting him. He tried to throw himself over Fourteen to shelter him, but he rolled away from Cym as soon as he touched him.
