Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) (7 page)

“But I …” I began.

“You have a natural magic, which makes it pure and strong. You did will it to end.”

“That’s when you were sent to find me?” I asked. Kian nodded again.

We shuffled forward as we had been doing for the last hour. We reached a portion of the line where we were near to the front, underneath a canopy and in front of some TVs playing various news channels. Apparently, meteorologists were warning of an extremely brutal winter for the Northeast. But I would be home by then. A thought struck me.

“Kian!” How could I not think to ask? “How many are there? How many people are you going to find?” My actual burning question was how long I would be away from home.

He shrugged dismissively. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean you don’t know? I thought you knew all of us.” I was annoyed, hot, and probably sunburnt. When I turned and saw his face, however, I understood. Kian turned back towards the television screens.

He doesn’t know how many he’ll find because he doesn’t know how many are left.

I pondered all of the events that could have befallen me had I never met Kian. What if these memories came back, and I didn’t know what to do? What if he hadn’t been there last night to drag me down by the ankle? What if I was just overrun by magic and collapsed under its weight? What if something else had happened to my human self? Has this happened to any of us?

I checked myself after the word “us.” No turning back now.

“
BREAKING NEWS
.” The television screens behind us flashed red. The muttering died down and people turned to the screens to watch and listen. I could hear a few parents shushing their children.

The noise of the crowd was still too loud to hear the announcer, but the closed captioning on each screen was flashing wildly. Suddenly, each of the dozen screens began showing an image of the Atlantic Ocean, with a red target sign over top.

“What …?” I began, but my question was cut off as the pier beneath us lurched and I toppled to the side. Kian caught my arm in a painful grip, but others weren’t as fortunate. Frantic screams erupted as people fell into the water, which was swaying in uneasy and violent waves.

“There’s been an earthquake somewhere offshore,” Kian said through gritted teeth. I instinctively looked up towards the screens for the news anchors confirming this, but everything had short-circuited.

The pier jolted and I lost my footing again. This time, for a terrifying few seconds, the pier groaned and shook as the water was sucked out from underneath it and into the ocean. We were faced with a giant wave forming offshore. More screams cut through the air. The wave broke but its tide still hit the pier and raised it. Through my panic, I saw more people tumble into the swelling ocean. The only thing keeping me away from the water was Kian’s death grip on my arm. He was hanging on to the railing of the pier with his other hand.

We rose with the water until the pier stood nearly vertical. The only thing louder than the roar of the sea was the grating of metal and wood as aged infrastructure gave out. And when I thought we were about to flip, the wave was gone and the pier crashed down.

Water engulfed us and I inhaled it in terror. The feeling of the pier slamming into the ocean was akin to when I had fallen into the Pacific only a few days ago. The ache reverberated off my heels, up my spine, through my neck, and into my head. I was disoriented and half drowned when Kian dragged me up.

“Run!” he shouted over the noise. I tried to scramble away, but my gaze kept turning back to the sea. People were in the water. Some struggled, some did not. I stared hard at the dangerous dark surface, expecting the magicians to emerge from within it.

“Gwen!” Kian was still yelling at me. “
Run
!”

I finally gathered the strength to run towards the end of the boardwalk and land, but not before I saw the Statue of Liberty violently rocking and shaking with the ocean’s surges.

T
he slippery and uneven wood did not make running easy, especially since I was still sore and aching. I eventually had to stop. My breath was becoming ragged, and my chest seized as the blood pumped through to my head, each heartbeat like a hammer blow.

I pulled Kian to a stop and realized we had been holding hands as we ran from the ocean’s fury. He let go and knelt in front of me, looking worried, while I doubled over and heaved. Something unfamiliar tugged at my chest. It threatened to overthrow me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

When I regained some energy and air, I straightened. We stood on a street that must have held lots of banks and offices, since the people who flooded the streets and crowded the windows were all dressed in smart black suits. Everyone eyed the sea nervously and spoke amongst themselves. I was at a total loss. So much for seeing the city.

Kian seized my arm again, his favourite spot where he liked to hold me as he saved my life, and I winced as the bruises deepened.

“Let’s go,” he said grimly.

A cold wind had swept over me, and I was suddenly glad to be wearing the long sleeves as I shivered like a wet cat. When the smell of salt touched my nostrils, it was sickening. I should not smell salt. Not here, not among the concrete and hot-dog vendors and cars. The magicians, if they were doing this, for the first time since I had allowed myself to believe, seemed wholly real.

Dripping with sweat, we eventually made it back to the hotel. I didn’t know how Kian remembered the way, but my side ached and the heat and dirt of the city pricked at my skin. He seemed unfazed. The streets we had passed were loaded with people gawking and whispering in the direction of the pier. We stopped outside the big doors of the hotel, where life seemed to be business as usual.

Kian gave me a look I hadn’t seen before. Was it meant to be reassuring? He took my hand and led me inside.

The screens in the lobby were all playing the same footage of the horror we had come from. Underneath the images of a rolling pier, a headline read, “Fifty-four dead in latest natural disaster to hit east coast.”

Kian was saying something. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Gwen?”

“Hm?”

I was embarrassed to be caught with my gaze lingering on our intertwined fingers. He ignored the red that quickly spread over my cheeks and led the way to the elevators. Luckily, our horrid appearance didn’t attract any attention as each face was turned either to a TV screen or a window.

I was refusing to look outside. I felt exposed and unsafe, as if the sea was about to surge and swallow Manhattan. The force had seemed so huge. The power to control that would have to be enormous. How did I ever stand a chance?

“What was that?” I asked in the elevator. My voice shook.

“In ancient times, people believed they were a product of the earth,” Kian said, pressing the button for our floor. “So to control the people, one must control the earth. That is what
they
did to our home, and now they are doing it to this land. They think if they cause enough confusion and fear, they will have enough power to take control.”

“How?”

Kian gave me a look that made it clear I did not want to know, but I would not back down.

“They campaign on fear. They believe to lead this country is the most powerful position in the world, and they want it.”

“Oh.”

The answer seemed obvious but I was still shocked an ancient magician would want to be president. To destroy the country seemed extreme.

“That’s why they need me,” I said. It was a statement. My power to control the earth meant political power to the magicians.

“Yes.”

Once in our room, I bolted for the shower. I could nearly feel the day’s events clinging to my skin like the heat and dirt. My cheeks and nose were sunburnt. I climbed into the shower and stood under the cold water.

My body and mind felt disconnected but not in the magical past-life kind of way. A thought slowly emerged: I was in shock. Stoically, with precision, I examined my emotions to determine if I was actually in a state of shock.

The headlines repeated in my mind.
Fifty-four dead.
The ache in my chest began anew, and I realized what the mysterious feeling tugging at me had been. All my energy left me and I sat in the shower, hugging my knees to my chest. Guilt.

It washed over me like the water from the showerhead. It was heavier, though, and caused me to struggle for air while tears rolled down my face. The barriers of protections that the shock had created were crumbling around me as the gravity of the situation wore in.

If I am all-powerful, why didn’t I do something?
I scolded myself. Then another thought interrupted.
If that was an indication of the magicians’ power, how am I ever going to survive?

Fear mingled with my remorse about being so helpless and running away. I sat in the shower and sobbed, unaware of the time.

There’s nothing you could have done. You’re not trained, you’re alone.
The logical portion of my mind spoke to me, but it was too quiet to quell the onslaught of revelations. It was the first time I had approached my supposed enemy — and I had run away, terrified.

The first time was the earthquake near your home, and you stopped that with your magic,
the logical half said. Again, I chose to ignore it.

The cold water kept striking my skin, but I could no longer feel it. Steam started to rise in the bathroom. I felt hot. My natural instincts kicked in and the terror was replaced by fury. Fury at the magicians for ruining lives, fury at my inability to help, fury for my situation. I told myself this was different than self-pity.

Suddenly, I was too hot. I reached out to turn off the hot water completely, but the knob sizzled when I touched it. Carefully, I stood. As I touched the shower curtain to pull it aside, it ignited in my hand. In an instant, I was boxed into the ceramic tile by a wall of fire.

A scream tore from my lips before I could think. The bathroom door banged open and Kian darted for the showerhead, pushing the fire aside with towels and spraying the flaming curtain. It was over as soon as it had begun.

We were left in a room filled with thick grey smoke, both gagging and coughing on it. Amazingly, though not reassuringly, the fire alarm in the hotel room hadn’t even gone off.

That’s when I realized I was completely exposed. Kian noticed at the same time and quickly turned away. For an instant, I even thought I saw some red creeping up his neck and into his ears. He turned towards the door and held out a hand to me. I took it, frowning, and practically skipped into the room to dive under the sheets.

“You keep doing that, you’re going to let the magic consume you unless you are more careful!”

It was the first annoyance I’d seen from him. He sounded angry in the way your parents get angry. Concerned.

“You need to learn to control yourself. Aren’t you frightened?” he asked.

My sob-fest in the shower was still fresh on my mind. I wanted to stall talking about it, afraid I would break out in tears again.

“Okay.” I stared at him defiantly. “I’m terrified. I have no idea what’s happening to me. If it’s not crippling visions, then I’m catching on fire or something.…” I waved my arm around the room while speaking and found the scratched ceiling. I sighed. My hands still held the cuts from last night’s expedition up the hotel room wall. “And,” I continued, “you can’t teach me.”

“But I can help you,” Kian said. “Powers like yours went elsewhere in the family.” He smiled at me in the same crooked way I saw earlier, though I didn’t get his joke. “Besides,” he added, “you are not going to escape the magicians or even survive your memories if you let your emotions set you on fire.”

His features implied he was joking, but a hard lump suddenly appeared in my throat. He was right. I didn’t stand a chance.

Later that evening, when I had dressed, eaten, and calmed somewhat, we watched the news until the day’s events began to be a monotone. When night was beginning to set in, my heartbeat quickened. Tonight I would try Kian’s method. As the darkness swept over the city, Kian closed the curtains and turned towards me, looking determined.

“Your magic is natural,” he told me. “You have never had to struggle for it, steal it, or lie for it. It is your birthright. As far as I know, your powers lie within your soul. They are yours to command. No magicians’ rules. No laws. The only thing I can tell you is that if you try to expend too much, or if you don’t consider your human body, your magic can kill you.”

Great.

“Once,” Kian continued, “you and a handful of others were strong enough to defeat the magicians, even as the Romans were calling your attention away — you were stretched too thin. You were fighting two wars. You controlled your power, and only you can rediscover how. I had hoped that your memories would unlock your abilities, but I suppose you must unlock your memories first.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Each so-called memory that had returned to me featured a man I did not know, overwhelming and confusing feelings, and more often than not, pain. And what about my dream from the night before? What was that?

Kian saw I was lost in thought and cut in. “You must find a way to initiate your memories and find your power. Perhaps if you can control them, they won’t cause you such pain.”

I thought over his words as I chewed my bottom lip. I had changed in the past few days — had it only been few days? Before then, I had experienced nothing. Now I felt like I had experienced everything. Kian, sitting on his bed a mere two feet away from me, had changed too. He was still handsome, still eerie and magical, but he was more human now. Did he just appear that way to me? Had he shown me his human side?

I kicked myself when I realized my thoughts were lingering on Kian rather than how to unlock my memories.

“My father used to tell me,” Kian said, one eye on the television, “that if you think long enough about any problem, the answer will come to you.”

I sighed. “So your wise suggestion is to … think?”

Kian nodded. “That, or be torn apart by your own soul.”

One week after arriving in New York, I was starting to long for home. Kian and I explored the city by day, and during the evening I lay prone, trying to regain some memories of my past life. I missed my parents and being constantly surrounded by animals.

After the incident at the pier, I was amazed at how life went on as usual. The president declared a state of emergency due to flooding in New York and a few other states, and a week of mourning for all the people who died when the sea surged. There had been an earthquake off the coast, just like the news said. No one mentioned any magicians trying to destroy the world.

“They are using the earth, just like last time,” Kian had said, pounding a fist into his other hand. I watched him pace our small room. “They are setting the pieces into motion, but it’s impossible to know how much time we have.”

So I had some time to learn, at least. I was getting fed up with my efforts. Lying on my back in the hotel room, I tried to blanket my mind in the knowledge that my soul held a strong power, and that another life was residing inside me.

Sometimes I succeeded in transporting my consciousness to the place where I could see through the eyes of my previous self. The visions were blurry, and the world spun. I threw up over the side of the bed on one occasion. Still, Kian assured me we were making progress.

Other times, I fell asleep. Kian would prod me awake with his foot if I began to snore. For someone who was bent on collecting every one of my kind to save the world and ourselves, he seemed very content staying with me in the hotel room. He even began to ignore his phone when his mysterious magician contacts would begin to call.

I had tried to look inside myself like I had done in my dream and find the power there, but more often than not, all I saw when I closed my eyes was grey. Boredom seized my mind and I found myself dreading the evenings when Kian forced me to try to find my memories. To my frustration, he would not let me give up. He read magazines and books quietly while I lay. I found my mind drifting to him when I would run out of things to think about. I always pushed him to the back of my mind. I realized it was because I didn’t want to hope. Hope for what, I didn’t know. But my thoughts would linger on when he took my hand.