The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

I looked down at the bloody wasteland that was his face. There was a broken tooth stuck in blood on his chin. His nose was curved to the right. I could see the impression of Tiggy’s fist on his left cheek. One eye was already swelling shut. He was a mess, a gross, disgusting tragedy, but he was smiling and laughing, and it was the most horrible sound I’d ever heard.

I hunkered down in front of him, his one good eye tracking my movement even as he chuckled still. “Sorry about that,” I said. “But you know how it is. You threaten a half-giant’s family, half-giant messes up your whole face. Don’t know if it’s that funny, though. Unless somehow the joke’s gone over my head. Which, okay. Sometimes that happens.”

“Not… that,” he said. “You… tink… you’ve won.”

“We have,” I told him as kindly as I could. “Today, we have. And we will win the rest of it too. That’s the difference between us and the Darks. We know—”

“You talk. And talk.”

“It’s certainly not monologuing, if that’s what you’re—”

“Here. I show you.”

I cocked my head at him.

“Behold,” he said, nodding toward his lap.

I looked down.

Black powder coated his front where the wooden spheres had cracked or broken. Some were still intact. Up close, I could smell it now, the powder. It was sharp and dank, like the Dark Woods after it rained. I thought maybe there were notes of wormwood and agrimony, pungent and thick. It was all over the floor underneath him. Underneath me.

And then I saw it.

The smoke curling up from his fisted hand, which rested on his lap.

He laughed again as his fingers unfurled.

The cigar. Letnia’s cigar. Squished from his grip.

But the tip was still lit. There was a burn mark on his palm, the skin blistered and red.

“Boom,” Feng said with a bloody grin, and tipped the cigar so it rolled off his fingers toward a pile of the black powder.

I didn’t have time to think. I could hear him laughing. I could feel the blood rushing in my head, could feel my heart bursting in my chest, the only thoughts in my head bright and flashing NO NO NO NO.

The cigar hit the powder and ignited.

NO NO NO—

There was a flash and—

Seconds turned to hours, because one moment there was ignition, and the next, Morgan was at my side, arms stretched out wide, palms facing forward. I felt his magic roll right over me as he started to swing his arms forward. The room around us burst into a kaleidoscope of color as his hands clapped together, the sound as loud as thunder. And then he spread his hands again, just as quickly, and there was such power that I was gagging on it and—

The powder reacted and Feng exploded.

But it was contained. It was controlled. The explosion arced outward, fire reaching, burning, but it stopped before it could overtake me or anyone else in the room. It was like there was a spherical barrier that surrounded Feng, turning back the strength of the fire he’d carried upon himself. The fire had no place else to go, so it curled in on itself violently. And if I focused, if I looked just hard enough, I could see the outline of the sphere, the curve of it, the shifting colors faint along its surface mixing with arcane symbols I’d never seen before. I could barely make out Feng inside the sphere, but part of Mama’s desk must have been caught inside the magic, as the fla

mes crawled along it, scarring and scorching the wood, splintering it off in pieces at the force of it.

Morgan had caught it in time using magic I’d never seen before. The rest of the little bombs in the office were unaffected.

I looked up at him slowly, barely able to tear my gaze away from the display in front of me. He stood above me, robes billowing, a look of extraordinary concentration on his face, hands spread apart and curved, like he was holding the sphere. A bead of sweat dripped down his cheek.

“What the fuck,” I breathed reverently.

The fire was… alive in a way I’d never seen before. It was almost snakelike in the way it roiled and twisted in whatever prison Morgan had trapped it in. It moved jerkily, pressing against some invisible wall. It was bright, casting shadows upon the walls and floors. And even though it was confined, I could still feel the heat of it against my face.

It wasn’t normal, though. Because if Morgan had done what I thought he had, then it should have already scorched through all the oxygen in the bubble he’d trapped it in.