Going Your Own Way, but with Magic

Chapter 22

Hundreds of people's magic joining together at once is both the most incredible and the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. Blinding white light meets shards of glass meets tidal waves, but it's all working to the same purpose. I can't see my own magic amid the bombardment of everyone else's. There is no time for breathing or thinking. I hold the shield. There is no dramatic moment of crossing the threshold into the void, things drop away around us. Hold the shield. The hand holding feels a lot less like hippy nonsense now – the vice like grip I've got on the two hands is the only thing stopping me from floating away. I pull the spell back a little when I can no longer breathe. There are hundreds of us in the void. It still feels lonely.

Cecelia's face is distorted in fury and Lazarus is collapsed off to one side. No thinking, hold the shield. One thought. Cecelia's face is furious, but it isn't defeated. My stomach sinks and I shout something that isn't a word and then the lack of floor becomes more of an issue.

We are falling. All of us. And fast. We are plummeting. People are screaming. There is no bottom that I can see. Maybe we'll fall forever, or maybe the floor's hidden. One hand is wrenched away from me but I clutch the other. I don't know who's it is anymore, I can't turn my head to look. Cecelia is laughing, laughs that shake her ribcage. Her dress is glowing white. It snaps me out of it enough for me to form a thought. I've fallen before. I survived. But this isn't air, the thing I'm trying to hold, it's slipperier. Still. Same principle. Feel the void and make it solid. I stop paying attention to the fall. We're falling so fast and so endlessly it's quite easy to ignore. Feel the void, don't grab, and then make it solid under me again. I'm standing. Precariously, but I'm standing. Poppy is lying on the new floor. People have materialised colourful parachutes, others are being chucked around in mid air. I hurl pure magic in the vague direction of Cecelia. Not a shield, I don't have that kind of control, but there's a sort of net. There is no organisation to this now, she is being covered by hundreds of nets and cages. A wave of shadow hits me in the face and knocks me over. It is icy cold. It is pure nothing, if nothing had teeth. It sweeps over me and sucks life away and I am bleeding, I can see my blood on my shirt and for god's sake stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up. I jump to me feet, fireballs coming to my hands without me calling them. I've given up on any sort of verbal spell, and I'm throwing as much magic as I can manage without tearing myself apart. The fireballs are a few centimetres off target and I am relieved because I don't want to death on my conscience. They singe off quite a bit of her hair, though.

Jamie is running towards me and I yell at him to turn around. He takes a swing at me and for a second I freeze because this is not supposed to happen and then I see the deadness in his eyes. No. She can't. I won't let her. She won't have him and it is rage that sends a blast of pure energy to knock her off her feet. I grab Jamie and pin him down, ignoring the chaos around me. He is struggling and I am frantic and the spell is very complicated, but I have something. Willpower, or the Everlasting Power of Friendship (tm), or love. It's none of those things. It's how I cannot let this happen and I will not let his happen and I will shift the Earth with my bare hands to stop it from happening. I feel desperately to the edges for the spell that's working it's way through him, finding seams where I can pull it apart. It's a tangle of thousands of tiny pieces and a wrong move could kill him. Don't think about that. Mind clear, magic soft and warm and gentle. Pull it apart, so carefully I don't breathe. The flatness leaves his eyes, and they shut softly. He lies unconscious, but breathing. I thank god, in case there was any divine intervention. I don't think there was. I give myself half a second to notice how pretty his mouth is and then I stop being an idiot and stand up.

I send a beam of pure rage at Cecelia. It doesn't even become fire. It's magic. Beautiful, strangling magic. I am trying to kill her, which I'm sure will terrify me later. Now, I don't give it a second thought. There is magic flying in every direction and I have been hit by a lot of electricity. I know, abstractly, that later I will be in serious pain. I should be in serious pain now, but there isn't time. Fighting. We are fighting. Throw and dodge and spin. It's almost relaxing. Someone gives my hand a squeeze from behind and I nearly elbow them in the face. It Poppy. I squeeze her hand back and hope that makes up for all the things I should say. I hope she survives. I hope I survive. Stop thinking and fight.

There are people screaming and I can't tell if it's pain or fear. People are trying to attend to wounded. I have no skill with healing, so I make a kind of umbrella around the healers. Umbrella in one hand, lasers in the other. I think they're lasers, they definitely look like lasers. There are shadows attacking us right now. Literal shadows, the shadows of people and objects. Lurching towards people and leaving them dull and lifeless. My own is long gone. Magic passes right through them so they can only be dodged. I realise that I'm shouting, and close my mouth. I don't know what I was saying. Jamie's eyes have opened and he's sitting up. Someone is standing over him, doing something magical. He's alive and awake and conscious. Oh god. I can't think about what would have happened if his eyes stayed shut. They didn't, so I force the image out of my head. There are other people here now, old men in robes with magic made of silver. Their magic is neat and polished and controlled. I don't know who they are, but they're firing at the shadows and not us. That's all that matters now.

We're reforming, with screamed orders from Nikki and hundreds of individual shields. Formation has been completely forgotten, but we've formed a vague circle around Cecelia. She is gasping for breath and her dress is torn to shreds. For the first time, there's fear in her eyes. Someone's magic pins her to the ground. I hold up an excuse for a shield. Nikki is bleeding severely from a wound in her leg, but when she steps forward she looks like an avenging angel. There is no sound, apart from someone crying. Ropes (bright purple), spring up around Cecelia. At some point, I fall over.

"Enough." With that word, the real world returns. I collapse straight onto the grass. Cecelia isn't struggling anymore, and as the adrenalin ebbs away I become conscious of how hurt I am. It is the kind of pain that should make me scream, if my lungs didn't hurt so badly. I sit up and fall back down again. I make myself turn to face Nikki and Cecelia. I don't want to miss the big moment. Most other people are in similar states. The grass is stained with blood and the less wounded are tending to the very wounded. Lots of people are lying down and some aren't moving. Jamie, I need to find Jamie. The pain ceases to matter for a few more minutes until I get to him. He's lying down, and his arm is bent at an angle it shouldn't be, but his eyes are wide open and he's trying to smile. I ends up as a grimace, but it's enough. Hugging him is excruciating. It's also the closest to a perfect moment I've ever had in my life, even kneeling in blood. He's warm and alive.