“Finny,” Sue says gently, “that may not go very well.”
Herman’s far blunter. “No one has ever turned their magick off and tried to turn it back on. It’s not like a computer.”
“I know,” I say. “But I could have stopped them. He would be safe. And I need to get him back.”
“Let us try to get some help,” Sue urges. “The sídhe may be sealed, but Dean Tanaka probably has a way to contact the queen. We can at least try.”
Sue’s not on my side. Fine.
Herman turns back in his seat and watches me. I hold his stare, daring him to try to stop me. He rubs at his eyes and finally says, “Promise me you won’t blow up the apartment.”
“No promises.”
He grimaces, but nods and opens his door. “I figured as much.”
Sue opens her mouth to protest, but he shakes his head and she doesn’t say anything. They plan who to call to report Roark’s kidnapping as we head upstairs. I ignore them and go to my room, shutting the door behind me.
His scent lingers in this space. That’s good. It gives me focus.
I take a deep breath and settle into the stance I’ve always used when I pull on the ley line while I’m practicing. Knees relaxed, feet solidly grounded. I close my eyes, fill my lungs with breath, and reach down into that strange, otherworldly place where my power comes from.
Nothing.
I go farther; it’s darker here. Quieter. Usually this is where the main current of energy lies, like a vast river coursing beneath my feet. Not even a trickle of power remains.
Far, far away, a flutter.
It’s farther than I’ve ever gone. All the stories come back. Merlin. Houdini. The fears and doubts everyone has told me. You’ll slip away. It’ll swallow you whole and you’ll vanish into it. According to my teachers and friends, I’ll lose myself.
But that already happened this morning when those men took him.
I dig down. My roots stretch, grow, past the point of claustrophobia, past the point of fear and fatigue. Somewhere, the ley line hides and I’m going to find it, no matter how long it takes. Together, we’ll find Roark and everything will be righted again.
I cast ahead blindly into the darkness. I no longer fear it. The first headlong plunge into this abyss caught against all my roughest patches. Stripping away those daily fears and memories of acquaintances was easy. For a long time, it was enough. But the deeper I go, the heavier my ties grow.
I shrug off expectations as they come. School, a career, and others’ hopes for me have no place here. Distracting doubts and quietly held fears are brushed aside. They weigh too much. There are other things I need to carry.
The darkness thickens and it presses in against me with the electric promise of a thunderstorm before it breaks. I’m so tired. My friends will wait for me. They can stand together until I return for them. I claw deeper. My parents whisper encouragement when they let me go and their love is a thread tied around my heart. I’ll never lose my way back to them.
When I hit my knees and wonder if I’ll be washed away into the nothingness, I find I’m not alone. Death and hope remain. They wait for me to stand and I move forward with my oldest, most devoted friends.
Death lets me go of its own accord. It releases my hand and sits to wait for my return. It will never leave me, but it can’t survive any further. Hope and I walk on. Something rests in the darkness ahead. Its pain thrums through us and though hope has stayed the longest, even it must wait now.
I am alone, and that’s when I find it.
My ley line’s weak. Barely alive. Frail and waiting for me to finish breaking it.
I kneel and hold out my hand. I wait. I will wait in this darkness forever if that’s what it takes.
The ley line examines me. We watch each other.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. My throat is raw from how often I’ve called that out. “I need you.”
It draws back from me.
“I understand now,” I promise. “I didn’t before.”
And I do. Traveling this far taught me what I’d never known before. Houdini and Merlin and the others wanted. They gave up everything holding them together in their pursuit of power. They wanted, but they never needed. There was never enough to tie them to their world. Their shells were too fragile. When they finally found the ley line, it burned through them too fast for them to resurface. There’s always a way in with this kind of power, but they didn’t have a way out.