Shift

TWENTY-FIVE.1

"Emanuel, make his nose broader; it looks like he got it done by some B-rate surgeon! And Blaze, thicken out the eyebrows a bit. The color is spot-on though."

For the first time in weeks, Blaze felt truly useful. Joseph Beckett had arrived only moments after being summoned by the Congregation. He'd looked a little sleep-disheveled, his hair a messy halo that matched his wrinkled shirt, but he had jumped into his task of making a Naven lookalike after just a quick briefing. He recruited Walter and two other advisers to help him craft the spell and, after appraising Blaze's practice illusion, he welcomed him to the team as well.

Blaze had been initially nervous; creating an illusion as a side project and creating an illusion for the Congregation with Joseph Beckett were two different tasks entirely. But eventually, it fell into a rhythm. He was constantly flipping through A Progressive Book of Magic, fingers slipping over the thin pages in search for the perfect symbols. Whenever he thought he'd found one, he'd politely nudge aside whoever was working on their own portion of the rune, insert the small chalk mark, and see if the alteration had worked or not.

He frowned, glancing from the book to the illusion's eyebrows that were hovering over deep pits in its skull—the man working on the eyes was taking his time, carefully crafting each rune in a notebook before checking on the actual illusion. As he flipped through a few more pages, he could see Kayden out of his periphery. She was talking with a group of advisors on the other half of the room, all of whom were bent over a bowl of water. At her side, leaning casually against the table as if intrigued by the whole process, was Vincent. The illusion's arm hovered very close to Kayden's lower back.

Blaze cleared his throat casually and focused back down at his book. "Er... Joseph, why is Vincent down here?"

"To help with the scrying," Joseph said without looking away from the rune on the wall. His fingers were thick with white chalk dust. "Since Naven put that tracking spell on Helio and Vincent was able to find him before, I thought that maybe he could help."

But why not Marie? Blaze thought.

It really shouldn't have bothered him which illusion it was—both Marie and Vincent had tried to drag them back to Le Lieu that day—but Blaze disliked Vincent in particular. He tried to convince himself that it was because Vincent was the one who had grabbed onto him, but he knew there was more to it than that. Seeing the illusion brought back memories of Kayden sitting against him on the couch in Walter's office, murmuring to Vincent in hushed tones as Blaze had been on the computer on the floor. He remembered how she had talked to him under her breath, how she had offered her wrist to him so he could trace the glowing mark. He remembered how her head had been tilted towards him as if she had wanted to kiss him.

It was pointless to be jealous of an illusion, and yet Blaze could feel jealousy stir in his gut like a fish attempting backflips in his stomach. It's pointless to feel anything at all at this point, he reminded himself. He thought of the way Kayden had looked at him when he had offered up his services to the Congregation: surprised, but almost disgusted. He knew exactly what she had been thinking: How can you be thinking about promoting yourself right now when the whole world could end?

But who was she to judge him? This was his opportunity to not only help with the spell crisis, but to prove to everyone that he could do something well; he was no longer the boy who cracked jokes in his ES classes to hide the fact that he couldn't cast a proper spell.

Suddenly Kayden floated over to his half of the room. Vincent trailed behind her like a puppy, dark curls bouncing against his neck. Blaze tried to ignore them, but he couldn't help but glance over at Kayden. She was standing over Naven's body, looking down at him thoughtfully. And then she bent over, as if to...

"Don't touch him," Blaze blurted, causing her to jerk back. She looked up at him, and with a sharp glare she stalked back to the table to continue with the scrying.

Vincent grinned at Blaze, shaking his head. "You really need to step up your game," the illusion said with a chuckle before following her.

Blaze shut his eyes. So stupid.

Naven's body was lying on the floor of the conference room as a model for the illusion. Besides being wrapped in thick chain spells that clung to his body like the strongest of ropes, he was guarded by a few bored advisors who clearly hadn't cared when Kayden had approached. Right now, Naven was harmless. And yet Blaze couldn't bear seeing Kayden so near to the man that had tortured her. It was like a bad movie playing in his skull. He just kept imagining the spells dissolving away and Naven bounding off the floor, reaching out to strike her again and again...

"Distracted?" Walter asked.

Blaze glanced up at him. "Huh?"

The old inventor tilted his head toward the illusion. The Naven lookalike now had eyebrows as thin as a pencil line.

Blaze winced, erasing the rune he had just scribbled with the side of his fist. "Sorry..."

"Maybe we need a break. A change of scenery? We've been working on it for two hours already."

Blaze glanced at the clock: 3:54. Time really was slipping away.

"I'm fine," he promised.

"Really?" Walter smiled at him gently. "Because I think I may join the others with some herb-picking."

"Wait—what?" Blaze turned around and saw for the first time that the scientists had returned to the conference. They were tittering to themselves delightedly, showing Carsten what appeared to be a list of new potion ingredients. Things to counteract the huckleberry leaves' effect.

"Personally," Walter said, his hand pressed to his chest, "I'm going to see if I can be one of the people to help with that. I can only stare at a rune for so long, and it seems to me that you're reaching your breaking point as well."

As much as Blaze didn't want to admit it, it was true. It was taking him much too long to recall the symbols that he knew, let alone the ones he had to search for. He glanced at the illusion, which, besides missing its eyes, was coming along nicely. It wasn't nearly done, but certain structural elements were already in place. It was just a matter of fine-tuning features.

Joseph glanced over at him. "You know, that sounds like a good idea, Blaze. Go help with the picking. Take a break."

Blaze nodded slowly, shutting the book. "Okay, I think I will do that." Exhaustion was setting in, and as much as he hated to say it, he was looking forward the quiet car ride to the farm.

Unfortunately, the quietness was only due to awkwardness.