“Oh, gods,” she moaned. What if she had hurt someone? Yanking herself from her paralysis, she bolted out of the archive, slipped on a wide patch of ice just outside the door, and went down on her knees. Water soaked through her jeans almost immediately; the frost layer was already melting, saturating the walls and floor and dripping from the ceiling.
“Jade!” It was Sasha’s voice, relieved. Armed with a submachine gun she held with easy familiarity, she was partway up the hall, slipping and slithering as she followed the ice trail to its source. “What happened? Was it Iago?”
Jade’s legs gave out on her at that, and she found herself sitting in a puddle of meltwater, gaping as the Nightkeepers charged up the hallway toward her, most of them armed, all of them coming to defend Skywatch against . . . her. She started to laugh, tried to swallow it, and ended up emitting a ridiculous hiccup that had Sasha’s expression going to one of pure worry.
Before her friend could go into healer mode, Jade waved to fend her off. “No, I’m fine, really.
Better than fine. I’m sorry about the door, though. And the walls. And the windows.” She looked around her at the growing melt, cringing at the destruction, then, when she remembered what the archive had looked like, wailed, “And the books!” They were all scanned into the digital system, but still.
“Jade!” Michael gripped her shoulder and gave her a none-too-gentle shake. “Was Iago here? Did something happen with one of the artifacts?”
“No.” The hysterical laughter threatened to burble up again. “Something happened with me. I did it, all of it. I finally wrote a spell. Or manipulated it, at least.” As she watched, a huge blob of slush let go of the ceiling and fell down the back of Michael’s neck.
“Gah!” He straightened abruptly, pawing at his nape, then scowled when the others laughed at him.
He glared around. “Can we get out of here and continue this someplace dry?”
“I’d suggest the great room,” a new voice broke in, “but the furniture’s gone . . . along with most of the floor, and what looks like part of the gym downstairs.” Strike made his way through the crowd.
Dressed in full black-on-black combat gear and wearing a loaded weapons belt, he was even more intimidating than usual. He glared around, not immediately locking on Jade. “What in the hell is going on here? We have rules about experimenting, you know. As in fucking don’t unless you’re in the training hall, where you can’t destroy too much expensive stuff.”
Jade closed her eyes as her brief amusement fled. She was starting to shake now, with a combination of reaction and what she suspected was going to be a hell of a postmagic crash. “I did it.
It was all my fault. I was looking at the fireball spell in the Idiot’s Guide , and it morphed into something else in front of my eyes. I recited what I saw and . . .” She trailed off, opened her eyes, and looked around, seeing a few faces missing. Including Lucius’s and Shandi’s. Fresh worry clutched at her. “Did I hurt anyone?”
The king shook his head. “We got lucky.” From the sudden satisfied glint in his eyes, she got the feeling he wasn’t entirely unhappy with what had just happened. He reached down and, before she knew what was happening, he had hauled her vertical and was leading her along the hallway, where their feet squished on the meltwater-soaked runner. “The great room was empty. Jox was in the kitchen, but he ducked behind the breakfast bar when the leading edge hit. The power was dissipating as it came, so by the time it reached the kitchen it was down to a spring frost and a couple inches of snow.”
That dry rundown didn’t even come close to prep-ping Jade for the sight that confronted her when she stepped through the arched doorway with the others crowding behind her.
The sitting area was demolished. Jagged, frozen chunks of what might have been the comfy chairs and assorted pillows were scattered across the space, which was draped with sharp-edged splashes of crystalline ice and drifts of snow. The sliders had blown out and snow drifted onto the pool deck, where it melted pretty much the second it hit the sun-baked deck. A large, dark shape lurked in the pool, leviathanesque. She was pretty sure it was the couch.
Holy. Shit.
Jade knotted her fingers together, her stomach churning as it had right before the magic, only more in an I’m-going-to-vomit way. “I’m so sorry.” She directed the apology at Jox, who had overseen the renovations and always did his level best to keep the mansion clean and comfortable for everyone.
“Gods. I’m sorry.”
The winikin’s expression bordered on wild. “Ice,” he said faintly. “There’s no such thing as an ice spell.”
“There is now.” She glanced at her scribe’s mark. “I think I just made it up. Or my talent did.”
“Just like that?” Strike snapped his fingers. “No warning?”
At that moment, Lucius appeared from the direction of the cottages, moving fast, his eyes hard and hot. He hesitated at the sight of the melting snowdrifts and the submerged sofa, then strode through into the ruined main room. His eyes swept the crowd and settled on her, then skimmed past. His aggressive stance eased. “I take it we’re not under attack?”
“Not an intentional one,” Leah answered dryly. “Jade was just about to tell us about when and how her powers started coming online. Because I’m guessing this wasn’t the first clue.”
Jade winced. “Yes and no. There was one other time, but I convinced myself it was nothing.”
“This,” Sven said, “is clearly something.” Patience elbowed him into silence.
Flushing, Jade sketched a brief summary of what she’d felt when she’d brought herself out of the barrier, and how she’d glanced at a supposedly gibberish text and seen a blessing instead. “I didn’t mention it before because I was convinced the magic had come from the Vennie nahwal, or that maybe she had tried to jump-start my talent and failed because my magic is simply too weak.”
“Apparently that’s not the case.” Despite the fact that he was standing ankle-deep in the melting mess and most of the living room was gone, Strike’s eyes gleamed. “Congratulations, Jade. You’re a scribe.”
“Yeah.” She grinned up at him. “I am.” Her smile felt foolish, though, and his image was a little watery around the edges, filtered as it was through unshed tears. “I also think I’m about to pass out.”
She didn’t, but it was pretty close.
Sasha and Michael propped her up and got her to her suite; she waved off the offer of an IV—she’d far rather pig out, thanks—but nodded floppily when Jox called after them that he’d have Shandi bring food. She would’ve warned him that Shandi was mad at her, but lacked the strength. Besides, given that Jox was the royal winikin, he probably already knew what was going on, and why. He’d already shown, though, that he wouldn’t interfere in a winikin’s relationship with his or her charge. Each winikin was chosen for a reason, even if that reason wasn’t immediately obvious. The gods move in mysterious ways, Jade thought woozily.
Once she was in bed, Sasha shooed Michael away and helped Jade undress and drag on an oversize T-shirt. Jade was asleep before Sasha pulled the curtains.
She awoke sometime later to the sight of French toast and OJ on a tray at her bedside table . . . and beyond that, Lucius sitting in the chair where she typically dumped her clean laundry. He was reading.
He didn’t realize right away that she was awake, giving her a few seconds to simply watch him. In her mind’s eye, the moment kaleidoscoped to the many times they’d read together in the archive, working separately but together, each of them in their old guises. Now, as he frowned down at the text —which was newly water-damaged, she saw with an inner wince—she found his single-minded, almost fanatical concentration arousing, in large part because she now knew that he brought that same level of intensity to lovemaking. Sex, she reminded herself. Sex, not lovemaking. Keep your own rules straight. Still, the sight heated her blood and tightened her skin despite the tug of lingering fatigue.