At Least

I don’t move from the door until my gut twists and I go throw up again. I’m surprised there’s still something left in my stomach. I’m surprised there’s still something left of me.

Aiden, Crystal, and Rose stay behind the door for a long time, knocking and trying to check in often. Though I don’t open it again for them, after several times, I haven’t the heart to keep telling them to go — maybe literally: it was torn still beating out of my chest when I hurt Rose.

The sun changes several times. I soon realize afterwards that I should change my clothes too; I’m feeling pretty disgusting. Then again, I match how I feel on the inside.

But time goes on no matter if it feels like my own personal world has ended.

Trying my best to look somewhat decent, freshly showered, shaven, and dressed, I finally leave my room.

I can’t remember the last time I felt the sun on my face. It must have still been before all this happened. Even in late November, the breeze is only slightly cool.

I find myself making a beeline for the tower with the tunnels. It should be the last place I go, but I can’t help it – it calls to me, like a metaphorical magnet to the magic in my veins.

The imposing black turret juts out of the destroyed ground around it, jumbled dirt and gaping cracks in the Earth. Except for a few broken windows, the building itself managed to get through pretty unscathed. The smell of magic and burnt sage hangs heavy and dense in the air; it nearly makes me sneeze.

“I knew you’d eventually come here.”

“Jesus!” I nearly spring out of my skin at the sound and sight of Aiden leaning against a nearby tree.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Good,” he says coolly, uncrossing his arms. “Little reminder that you still have a heart, contrary to your belief lately.”

Immediately, the incessant gnawing guilt is back, and I back up a step. “Aiden-”

“A broken heart is still a heart, Kye. But right now, you’re breaking it for the wrong reason. And you’re breaking Rose’s.”

“Better her heart than her neck,” I grit my teeth through a pang in my chest.

“You’re hurting her more now than anything you did in the last two weeks.”

“I’m dangerous even now,” I hiss, up in his face. “You saw me: I nearly obliterated everything in my path with that blast of light last time, and I didn’t even know I was doing it. I don’t need a monster inside me to hurt someone.”

“Then work with us and figure it out. Kye, the compulsion shut down any darkness inside you and you were still able to do that. That must mean your magic is clean, it’s good.”

“Then you figure it out, because I’m done. You are all safer without me working with you.”

I start to spin on my heel when his words stop me cold.

“Us, or Rose?”

I freeze.

“You promised to keep her safe? How the hell are you planning to do that by running away and shutting her out?”

“I’m keeping her safe from me.” My jaw throbs from clenching my teeth so hard and my knees wiggle like jelly.

“She doesn’t need to be kept safe from you. To be honest, she doesn’t need to be kept safe from anything; the girl can hold her own. What she needs is you. Kye, she loves you.”

Dampness prickles at my eyes and I shut them tight. “She can’t possibly. After what I did to her? How I treated her? After what I said to her last time?”

“Yes, after all that,” Aiden’s voice is closer and when I pry open my eyes, he stands right in front of me. “Okay, what you said to her, yeah, you were kinda a douche. But you’d also been through a lot.”

“That’s not an excuse,” I start to push past him.

He catches my arm; I keep forgetting how strong he is. “It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact. Don’t undersell what happened to you, Kye. You literally went through hell and back. But you know what? Rose was right there with you.”

“Yeah, because I put her through it.”

“Because she wanted to be there,” he corrects me, staring me straight in the eye. “Kye, she didn’t leave you for a second, unless we forced her away to sleep, and I don’t think she truly slept either. She didn’t leave you then; don’t you dare leave her now.”

A tear hits my cheek before I realize it, and I quickly wipe it away but another one takes its place.

“God,” I scrub my hands down my face. “But Aiden, how- how do I get over this? I don’t understand how she would still- still want me, still love me.”

“Do you still love her?”

I sniffle and nearly choke. “Of course I do.”

“She feels the exact same way you do. She blames herself for the charm, for the dark ritual-”

“It’s not the same-”

“To her, it is! It doesn’t mean she feels less guilty about what she did than you feel about what you did. In my opinion, you’re both being dumb. You did what you had to do in the moment. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t wrong either. It’s just what happened and after that, you move on. Is it going to stick with you for a while? Of course it will. But you don’t let it stop you. You move past it together.”

A strangled laugh gets mixed up in my sigh. “God, how does Crystal put up with you being right all the time?”

“Sometimes I think the woman’s actually a saint. But seriously, Kye: go to Rose. She’s miserable, she’s hurting. You’re hurting, even if you won’t let yourself admit it. Will you talk to her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will.” I rub my eyes and let out a short laugh. “You see me cry way too much, by the way.”

Aiden actually laughs, then he glances in the direction of the tower and his smile disappears instantly.

“Do you smell that?” he asks me.

“Compulsion spell,” I nod.

“Yeah, we’ve felt it around here since that evening. Seems to be doing its job keeping people from asking questions.”

“Does it affect you?”

He shakes his head. “Thankfully not. It doesn’t work on Rose either, because she has her charm on.”

I nod in relief, then something dawns on me. “Hey Aiden, somebody must have cast this,” I state the obvious fact. “We’re dealing with another alchemist, one able to cast such a wide compulsion net, which means they have to be wielding dark magic.”

“Hey, it’s all the rage these days,” Aiden stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lets out a long, heavy breath. From the grim lines etched into his jaw, I can see how hard using the dark magic hits him — not that I need to see it to know, to be well aware of the gravity and danger of what they did. A stab of guilt again cuts through me, knowing how much they risked — and probably still do risk with the aftermath — to the perform the spell.

Then again, Aiden did just tell me to work through the guilt — baby steps.

I hold his somber stare for a moment as I say, “Thank you,” then we both sit down in the grass a safe distance from the tower.

Absentmindedly, I run my hands over the blades of grass, nails raking into the soil.

Aiden watches me intently.

“Can you feel the energy now?” he asks quietly, and I pause, unaware of what I’d been doing and sensing. A faint tremor ripples under my palm, like a quake in the Earth. Just skimming under the surface, I sense it there, waiting for me to tap into it if I wanted.

I don’t know if I want it.

I pull my hands back, not used to the feeling though it clearly recognizes me.

“Yeah. Yeah, I feel it.”

A pause.

Aiden tips his face up to the sun. “Your magic: I haven’t seen anything like it before. It seems almost … ancient, primal. Easy and natural. Modern alchemists, we all have to try to get spells and rituals to work. We need spellbooks and ingredients; it’s not like we can just press our handprints in the mud and conjure up energy. You have some sort of deeper power inside you.”

I flop back on the grass, the dew seeping into my clothes and hair but I don’t care. Burrowing my fingers into the ground again, this time I let myself feel the energy activate at my touch, carefully wind through my body like a ribbon unfurling. My vision takes on a slight amber hue before I blink, breaking my connection with the Earth as I fold my hands across my stomach.

My chest constricts with the trademark tightness I’ve felt since my memories returned, one memory in particular that I had nearly forgotten about coming back with stunning clarity, making it hard to breathe for a moment.

You have a power inside you beyond what the Earth can handle.

When that monster was in my body, I felt it, slithering in my skin, contorting my body, invading my brain. Reaching for my magic. I could feel it, trying to snag its claws into my veins and tap into the power coursing through my bloodstream – but it couldn’t. Something stopped it. I was helpless to the monster in control, but something else inside me blocked it from getting its evil grip on my magic. Something else that even the primordial monster didn’t recognize. It’s hard to tell if that’s a good or bad thing.

Power beyond what the Earth can handle.

Doesn’t sound like a good thing.

Aiden studies me closely, always the most careful one of us. But not judging, never judging.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks.

With a shaky inhale, I debate whether or not to tell him. I want to make amends, fix my relationships with him, Crystal, and Rose, even though they all insist that there’s no need to fix what was never broken.

But what if this is the breaking point?

Subtly, I flex my fingers in the Earth, and a tiny spark of amber light snaps under my palm. Extinguishing it quickly before Aiden can spot it, I decide they can’t find out. At least until I find out more about it. At least until I know what it is and how to control it. At least until I’m sure I can't hurt anyone with it.

“At least” never feels like a good enough reason.