Hopeless Magic (28 page)

"Yes, but you know him; he would never risk the lives of so many people on a hunch."

"So is that why all of those kings have hated him for all this time?" I asked, hardly able to digest any of it.

"Well, yeah, that and because they have always known he is more powerful than them. Believe me, they have all tried to kill him, but they can't.

427/711

And they're jealous, he has the one thing they've all wanted and can't have."

"Immortality," I found my whisper again, gazing into Jericho's eyes and finally understanding the intricacies of my grandfather's past.

Jericho looked down at me, his eyes twinkling.

His hand was hot against my bare back and he held my hand in his gently. For a moment, I forgot his story and forgot there were other people around us, we were floating on a cloud of white rose petals and there was only me and there was only him.

"Seriously, Eden," Seraphina's high-pitched, snide voice cut through our perfect moment, grounding our cloud and piercing my ears.

"You're not at a funeral."

Kiran was holding her tightly to him, her lavender gown glistening against his crisp tuxedo.

Seraphina was gorgeous in a strapless a-line gown with bustled back and diamond detailing.

Her hair was in an elegant up do, soft tendrils tumbling down her neck. As usual she looked too 428/711

beautiful to be so mean, but that had never stopped her before.

"Maybe I am," I sighed, not having the will to fight or the stamina to watch Kiran dance with her.

"At least you tried this time around. You failed, but at least there was some

effort," she finished, looking down at me over her nose. I so wanted to punch that nose, but I held back, wanting this dance to end better than the last one.

"Sera...." Kiran chided, but not in a way that said he meant it.

"I don't think you get it," Jericho spoke up, surprising all of us. "
Some
women don't need to be so obvious." He looked over her dress with the ultimate detest and I couldn't hold back my laugh, it rung out high and clear above the sound of the soft music. "How dare you," Kiran let go of Seraphina to face him directly. "You cannot speak to my fiance like that."

429/711

Jericho let go of me as well, stepping in forward as if to protect me, "You know what, you're right.

It's just that sometimes I forget that
she's
your fiance," Jericho took another step forward, daring Kiran to retaliate.

"I think
you
are the one who has forgotten his place," Kiran took the challenge and stepped forward, both boys eyeing each other with menace.

Talbott and Avalon appeared from out of nowhere, taking their places on either side of the argument. They stood there staring at each other with just as much malice, having had a bone to pick with one another for quite some time.

"And what place would that be?" Jericho dared him.

"Beneath me," Kiran growled.

"Not when it comes to Eden," Jericho said plainly. Then the unthinkable happened.

Kiran punched Jericho in the face with fury, sending him flying backwards into the crowd of people that had gathered around to watch. His nose erupting in blood before he fixed it quickly 430/711

with magic and pushed off the people he had fallen into. He was across the floor in seconds returning Kiran's blow with one of his own.

Avalon wasn't one to wait around and had decked Talbott while he tried to pull Jericho off of Kiran.

The boys wrestled around on the floor, the sick sound of bones being cracked and fists finding flesh, echoing in the otherwise silent gymnasium.

Blood was sprayed on the floor and tuxedos before magic could be used to stop it. And girls screamed at the display of violence, not understanding the reason for the quarrel.

I stood there feeling helpless, not knowing whose side I was on. Although, it felt like Kiran's side wasn't even an option. Seraphina and her holy trinity stood across the fight staring daggers into me as if the whole ordeal was my fault.

"That is enough," Amory appeared, fighting through the crowd, shouting at the wrestling match staining the white floor with sticky blood.

When none of the boys appeared to listen or even hear, I looked on as Amory time slowed the fight 431/711

down, using his own magical powers, interrupting the fight, separating all four boys with a simple use of forceful electricity.

"Enough," Amory said more quietly, with more authority than I think I had ever heard him use.

"Avalon and Jericho, find your dates and leave the premises immediately. You are no longer welcome here. Kiran and Talbott, I suggest you clean yourselves up and enjoy what is left of the night. If I see any more outbursts like this, I will be on the phone with your father before you can fix your broken nose. How dare any of you interrupt a night like this and behave like animals.

Now, go," he demanded. Everyone scattered.

Jericho put his arm around me, ushering me out the doors and I let him. Looking back at Kiran I saw a hateful look in his eyes. His gaze flickered to me and suddenly there was a desperate look of defeat in them. He stood there watching me like he had lost me; I couldn't bear to see him hurt like that, to see the pain of losing me, even for a moment, gave him.

432/711

28.

I awoke in our dream world, but it felt empty.

Kiran wasn't there yet because I was the one who would be calling him. I had decided that as soon as I witnessed the look in his eyes at the dance.

I couldn't leave him feeling like he had lost me; he hadn't. And he needed to at the very least be reassured.

I had no other way of contacting him, so I had decided to take action almost immediately. I had never initiated a Dream Walk before, but I knew, from what everyone had told me and because I had the four different types of magic, that I was capable of doing it.

As soon as we arrived home, I had left the rest of the group and gone to bed. I didn't know what to say to them, or how to express the sympathy that I wasn't sure I felt anymore.

I was grateful that Jericho had stuck up for me, and I had let him know that several times, but I 434/711

couldn't just take his side completely. He didn't understand Kiran or our relationship.

I wasn't even sure that I did.

So I had decided to Dream Walk, which in the end would take a considerable amount of magic and brainpower I hadn't even realized I possessed. And now that I was in the middle of our perfect world, I wasn't exactly sure how to get Kiran to join me.

Unlike the Witch side of me that used magic through my blood, the electrical feeling of physical magic didn't apply to the psychic parts. The Medium side to magic was more like an electrical storm in my brain.

I had never really used the Medium side of my magic before. The Witch part came so naturally, I never really even knew it existed, which in the end made sense. Amory was the most powerful Witch of his generation and that was why he had been the oracle in the first place.

The idea of all four types of magic used in a different way had never even really occurred to me.

435/711

I knew the Titan part came out in battle, but only because I had relied on it so many times before.

Trying to figure out the psychic part had been almost an unnerving experience and I didn't even want to think about trying to Shape-shift. The idea of becoming something entirely different was terrifying.

I had to work up to the magic in my mind slowly.

The first time I felt the current run through my brain I had been pretty sure I was about to die of a brain aneurism and I sat there for several minutes saying normal stuff to myself in a harsh whisper testing my memory, like the A, B, C's and counting to ten.

Eventually the feeling became as normal as it could be, for that sort of thing and I was able to concentrate on using it. I tried to Time Slow which slowed the world around me into whatever pace I desired, not that an empty room was easy to practice with, but I got creative. I tossed pillows across the room, in order to slow them down and move myself into position in order to 436/711

catch them. When I got good at that, I tested dropping Aunt Syl's jewelry box on the floor, and catching it while replacing all of the spilling jewelry.

I had practiced mind reading with Amory before, but tested it inside the house on Roxie, since the other three were, I felt, off limits. I already had unlimited access to Avalon's mind. It wasn't easy, but eventually I had broken in.

And finally I worked on Dream Walking. But now that I was in our world, I had to figure out how to call Kiran to join me.

I sat down in the velvety grass, the soft moonlight pooling around me. I ran my fingers through the darkened wildflowers, their color not nearly so vibrant in the darkness. I whispered Kiran's name softly into the night, calling him from the recesses of my soul.

I felt the surge of electricity in the psychic-sphere of my mind and in the stillness of this world felt him arrive. I was pleased it had been so easy. It wasn't like he had appeared magically before me, 437/711

but there was the distinct knowledge that I was no longer alone.

I stood up, suddenly nervous. I walked through the forest, the moonlight all but gone with the canopy of trees overhead. I stumbled around in the dark searching him out, but also afraid of finding him.

"Sometimes I forget you can do anything," Kiran called out to me in a low melancholy voice.

I turned around and there he was, his back to a tree. He was wearing silky pajama pants and no shirt. His face was obscured from the lack of light and I couldn't read his expression. I didn't know whether to run in to his arms or leave the dream all together.

"I can't do
anything
," I whispered, standing still, afraid to approach.

"I thought that might be true once, but now I'm not so sure," he did not move, he stayed still against the tree, his face completely unreadable.

"Are you angry?" I asked, finding the courage to take one step forward.

438/711

"No," was his only reply.

"Are you upset?" I guessed again, wishing I could pinpoint his emotion.

"Why don't you stop trying to guess how I'm feeling and explain to me what happened tonight." He was still, his face still a black canvas of obscurity.

"I don't know what happened tonight," I began, trying to put in to words what seemed like just a terrible memory. "Kiran, I didn't want to go to the dance with Sebastian. I don't trust him. I know that you do, and that's fine. But I can't trust him.

And when he showed up at my house, claiming that he couldn't stop thinking about me, and wanted to go to the dance with me and all of that, I panicked. Jericho was there.... Because of Avalon.... and I just grabbed him, lying that he was my boyfriend to get Sebastian out of my house and put any thoughts of me to rest; Jericho, thankfully, just went along with it."

"Well, that's no surprise there," he mumbled, but his tone sounded better, just barely.

439/711

"Kiran, if I had any idea of how much I would upset you, I wouldn't have even gone to the dance. I, I.... I just thought it would be a harmless night, and since I had used Jericho as an excuse with Sebastian, I wanted to cover all of my bases.

That's all. There is nothing between Jericho and me. There is absolutely nothing to worry about."

"So you say," he stepped away from the tree and the little light that made its way through the canopy of darkened greenery illuminated his face.

His expression was softened, but the sadness etched across his forehead and deep in his eyes was unmistakable. He reached out to me and I ran to him, letting him envelope me in his arms.

"Eden, you don't see how he looks at you. You don't have to watch some other guy fall in love with you and sit there helpless."

"Yes, I do," I said plainly. "Seraphina has her dirty little hands all over you, all the time. She's the one who gets to go to dances with you and eat lunch with you and be taken on dates. All I get 440/711

are secret rendezvous' and midnight, subconscious sleep worlds."

"Oh, Love," he hugged me tighter, "We have got to figure something else out. It doesn't do any good for us to fight over these stupid jealousies,"

he tipped my chin up to him, gazing into my eyes. "Seraphina means nothing to me. And I'm fairly certain all I mean to her is a crown. You have nothing to worry about."

"Nothing? Yeah, right. Except that you're supposed to be getting married to her," my bottom lip jutted out in an uncontrollable pout.

"That will never happen," he smiled reassuringly.

"How can you be so sure?" but the hope was already there, unwillingly and without permission, the small flicker of hope had begun to grow.

"India," Kiran replied with confidence. "Father wanted to meet you, get to know you better. He knows I have no real feelings for Seraphina, which has never bothered him before; but if he does suspect you are who you really are, then he might hope the feelings between us are real. A 441/711

marriage between the two of us would be.... be-neficial.... for all parties involved." There was hope in Kiran's eyes, too; he was beginning to believe there was a future for us.

"Marriage?" I gulped. I was not even seventeen yet and already I had to be thinking about marriage. There was not a doubt in my mind that Kiran would be the only man I would ever want to marry, but did we have to start talking about it already?

"Don't tell me you have cold feet already? We don't even know what my father is really thinking," he smirked at me.

"No, I know, I mean, I was just surprised that we could even use that word," I stumbled through what I hoped to be a convincing argument.

"I'm just teasing, Love," he leaned in to me and finally our lips connected. Our magics slammed into each other in a raw connection reminding us that it had been too long since we were alone.

Kiran kissed me passionately, dipping me back and holding me tighter. I was overwhelmed by 442/711

him, feeling heady and lost. He kissed my mouth and my neck, making his way across my shoulder blades and then back to my mouth again. One of his hands was tangled in my hair and the other pressed tightly against my lower back. He was fierce against my mouth and when he left it, finding my ear and neck again I had to gasp for breath.