Hamid and the other warrior stopped at the buffet for food and walked to a table on the far side of the room. As they passed, I could hear giggles from three girls at the next table. I watched the girls’ eyes follow Hamid and heard their dreamy sighs. I caught myself scowling at them and wondering if I’d been that silly the first time I saw him. The thought made me cringe inwardly.
“Trainees,” Josh said, seeing where my attention lay. “Can you believe that was us only a few years ago?”
I smiled. “Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago, and sometimes it feels like just yesterday.”
We spent the rest of our breakfast catching up, and they told me they were being assigned to one of the new command centers in a few months. They didn’t know which one yet, but they’d both asked to go to the same one. I’d been to all of the command centers, though I’d spent the most time in Los Angeles, and I was happy to answer all their questions.
I was carrying my dishes to one of the bus bins when I felt Hamid come up behind me. Setting my plate in a bin, I turned to face him.
“The team is assembled in the arena and waiting to talk to us,” he said.
“Okay.” A little ball of dread formed in my stomach. I was eager to get this spell off me, but I didn’t like magic or the idea of being the subject of anyone’s tests.
We left by the main exit and walked across the grounds to the arena. Made of stone with a glass domed roof and tall windows, the arena was used mainly for training and sporting events such as dueling. It made sense that they were holding the meeting out here. The building was private and had plenty of room to perform spells and such.
Hamid opened the door for me, and I reluctantly entered the building. I walked down the short hallway that opened into the main room where Orias and four people I didn’t know waited for us. Two of them were warlocks like Orias, and the other two were scholars.
A Mohiri female stepped forward and took my hand in a firm grip. She had dark hair, fair skin, and an English accent. “Charlotte Wright. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“You too,” I said before the next one, a red-haired warrior named Marie Blast, introduced herself.
Orias introduced me to his peers, who appeared to be around the same age as him. Ciro was a quiet, serious-looking warlock with dark skin and a pleasant smile. Bastien was shorter than the other two and what I would call portly. His hair and skin were so white he looked like an albino, and he spoke with a thick French accent.
“There are no female magic users on the team?” I asked them.
“Witches use Earth magic, not demon magic,” Orias explained. “They have no experience with summoning spells.”
“It figures only males would screw around with this shit,” I said, earning a glare from Orias and a chuckle from Charlotte.
Another thought occurred to me. “What about faeries?” I got the impression the Fae weren’t overly concerned about what happened in our world, but Eldeorin and Aine would help if Sara asked them to.
“We can’t have a faerie near the spell and risk them breaking it,” Ciro said. “And we certainly don’t want them anywhere near a hole in the barrier.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
Bastien gave me an indulgent smile. “The barrier is made up of elements from both dimensions. What do you think would happen if a faerie got too close to an opening in the barrier and exposed it to their magic? The whole thing could become destabilized.”
“I guess I never gave much thought to what the barrier is made of,” I admitted. To be fair, I’d had little reason to think about the barrier before the start of all of this. I already knew more about it than I ever wanted to.
After all the introductions were out of the way, we sat and the team got down to business. For the next two hours, they asked question after question about the night we’d been caught in the spell. Every detail seemed important to them, from the exact sequence of events down to what we were wearing at the time. I answered them all until Marie asked if I had been in my fertile cycle at the time.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I demanded.
“In some cultures, females are believed to be more receptive to magic during their fertile time,” she explained.
Avoiding Hamid’s eyes, I said, “No. I wasn’t in my fertile cycle.”
The scholar nodded, but she almost looked disappointed. Thankfully, someone else started a different line of questions.
After the questions came the tests. They mainly consisted of Hamid or me or both of us standing in the center of the room while the warlocks took turns “examining” the magic, much like Orias had done in Los Angeles. Even though none of the tests were invasive, I was more than ready to get out of there when Charlotte called for us to break for lunch.
I headed to the dining hall, where I found myself the subject of many curious stares. It seemed that everyone knew about the magical testing going on in the arena today and that I was one of the guinea pigs. Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, I grabbed a bottle of water and went to my room. Back in my training days, I used to love being the center of attention, but I was coming to learn that not all attention was good.
I changed into my running clothes and ran laps back and forth to the lake. Hardly anyone used the road when Sara and the others weren’t at home, so I had the place to myself. That suited me just fine because I was in no mood for company.
When the time came to return to the arena, I had to force myself to go back to my room to shower and change. Not surprisingly, I was the last one to arrive. The look Hamid gave me when I entered the building told me he had been expecting to have to go search for me.
He met me halfway across the floor, concern etched on his face. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” I said with forced lightness.
His brows drew together. “If you need a longer break, you don’t have to –”
“I don’t need to be coddled,” I replied more sharply than I meant to. Softening my tone, I said, “If you’re ready, so am I. Let’s do this.”
The sooner we got this over with, the sooner I could get out of here. Over lunch, I’d decided to take Sara up on her offer to stay at their house, and I was already looking forward to a peaceful night alone at the lake.
Hamid and I took our places at the center of the room and endured another round of magical tests. As the afternoon wore away, so did my patience, until I was sure I’d snap the head off the next person who tried to perform a spell on me.
“I think that will be enough for today,” said Charlotte, who appeared to be the unofficial team leader. “We’ll spend the night going over our results from today and reconvene tomorrow morning.”
“Awesome,” I muttered, already turning for the exit.
“I’d like to perform one more test, if you don’t mind,” Bastien called.
I closed my eyes for several seconds before I came around to face them again. “Can’t it wait?”
The warlock gave me an apologetic smile. “This will only take a few minutes, I swear, and it could prove very helpful in our discussion tonight.”
“Fine.” We were all here for the same reason – to create a new spell to replace the one on Hamid and me. If Bastien’s test could help them figure things out, I wouldn’t say no.
Bastien instructed Hamid and me to stand with our backs to each other, holding each other’s hands behind us. Even though I couldn’t see Hamid, it felt too intimate having him hold my hands this way. Every nerve ending in my hands seemed to tingle at the physical contact, and my heart gave a weird little flutter. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and it made me want to lean into him and run away at the same time.
The warlock walked around us, laying crystals on the floor in a circle with us at the center. When he was done, he came to stand in front of me. “This spell will attempt to map the magical connection between you two. It won’t replace the existing spell, but we can study it and potentially use it as a blueprint for a new spell.”
“Got it,” I said.
Bastien stepped back and started to chant, and within a minute, the crystals were giving off a bright white glow. It reminded me a little of the crystals from the summoning ceremony, and my fingers flexed nervously around Hamid’s. He didn’t speak, but his thumbs began stroking the backs on my hands in a slow reassuring pattern. Unable to pull my hands away, I stood there and told myself I wasn’t at all soothed by his touch.
I winced when a sharp pain lanced through my head. It was gone in a second, but it had been bad enough to make my eyes close against the pain.
The second time the pain struck, it was stronger, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Again, it was gone in an instant, but I tensed as I waited for the next one.
“Argh!” I cried as white-hot pain burst in my head. It was like someone had driven a knife right through my eye socket. My whole body sagged, and the only thing holding me up was Hamid.
“Stop it now,” Hamid snarled viciously. Seconds later, he released my hands and spun to catch me before I collapsed in an undignified heap.
“It’s over,” he said gruffly against my ear. “I’m sorry. Had I known it would hurt you, I wouldn’t have allowed him to perform the spell.”
I nodded, but it was a minute before I could speak or stand on my own. I had no choice but to stand there with my back pressed to Hamid’s chest and his arms wrapped around me. If I’d thought holding hands was intimate, that had nothing on the sensations flooding me now.
As soon as I was able to move, I stepped out of his hold. My eye narrowed on Bastien. I closed the few feet between us, hauled off, and slugged him.
He staggered backward with his hands over his gushing nose, and I followed him. Before I could land a second blow, Hamid grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from the moaning warlock.
“Let me go,” I yelled as I fought his hold to no avail.
Hamid turned us until I could no longer see Bastien. “Calm down.”
“You have a hot poker shoved into your eye and see how calm you are,” I said through gritted teeth.
His body stiffened. “That’s what it felt like?”
I stopped struggling since it was no use. “I’ll take that to mean you didn’t feel any pain.”
“There was some pain, but nothing like you described.”
“Lucky you,” I said sourly. “Now, can you please let me go?”
“Do you promise not to attack Bastien?” he asked, not loosening his hold on me.
“Not unless he comes near me again.”
“I will see that he doesn’t.” Hamid’s voice took on a hard edge that made me believe he meant what he said. He let his arms drop, releasing me.
I straightened my shirt and faced everyone. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m done being your lab rat for today.”
Casting Bastien a scathing look, I spun and strode toward the door. I barely made it six feet before I was yanked backward.