Breaking Magic

Chapter 17: Adam

I don't have any money when the pizza guy finally arrives, but Felix left his wallet behind when he stormed out.

I feel kind of bad when I hand over his credit card, but the pizza is already made and the guy went through all the trouble of getting it here, and it seems more messed up to just not answer the door and hope he goes away.

Besides, I'm starving.

I devour most of it, and then sit on the bed and stare at the door Felix disappeared through, trying to figure out what to do now.

I can't just leave, get a plane back home and leave Felix behind. I don't have any money of my own, so I'm relying on Felix to buy the plane tickets back to the US.

The thought of having to spend another seventeen hour flight next to him fills me with frustration and embarrassment.

I'm still pissed that he dragged me all the way out here just based on a handful of guesses, and I'm pissed at myself for not making him tell me his whole plan before I went and got on the damn plane with him in the first place. I had been so desperate for a way out, so focused on the walls closing in all around me, that it had been easier just to let him take over. I put my future entirely in his hands because it was easier to let someone else make these impossible decisions for me, and in the end, all it did was get me in deeper trouble.

I'm embarrassed for shouting at him the way I did, for going off like that. I feel bad about that—his plan may be stupid, but he really seems to think it will work. I'm still not Felix's biggest fan, I doubt I ever will be, but now that I've been forced to spend the last couple of days in his company without a break, I have to admit he's not quite as big of an asshole as I always thought he was.

He's still a bit of an asshole, though. I guess the difference is that now I know that he's not trying to be an asshole, that's just his natural personality.

Still. There's nothing I can do about either my guilt or my irritation while he's gone, so there's no point in dwelling on the expression on his face as he pushed past me to leave. All I'm doing it working myself up, and I haven't used any magic in nearly twenty-four hours. I can feel it starting to build up, and I know I have to either get a handle on my emotions, or go work some of this magic off.

I fail at the former, so I settle for the latter and leave the hotel room, locking the door behind me.

I go out into the garden in the back of the building, pretending like I don't hear the owner's greeting as I dart through the front room. I feel a little guilty about that too, but I'm in no mood to either socialize, or try to interpret her thick accent.

Despite it being so late in November, the weather is surprisingly nice, and it's almost warm enough when standing in direct sunlight to shed my coat. But I don't want to be seen, so I find a shady spot under a huge oak tree, using the thick trunk to shield me from view of the hotel.

I'm all anxious and twitchy, still worked up from the fight with Felix, and I know if I try a small spell, I'll end up pouring way too much power into it and cause some bizarre, probably dangerous magical backlash. I decide to go for a big spell instead, something that needs a large amount of energy, but can be done quickly, so I won't need to keep focused for too long and risk losing control halfway through.

I pull out my wand, and point it at one of the low hanging tree boughs, dangling almost right in front of my face. It's mostly bare, though a few grey-brown leaves are still clinging half-heartedly to it. They tremble dangerously in the light breeze, just one stiff gust of wind from being blown away.

I level my wand at those leaves, so that its tip is almost touching them, and I stare at them so hard that everything in the periphery of my vision fades to black. Those four or five leaves become my entire world, my whole universe. I see them as they are, and in my mind's eye, I see them as they were only a few months ago—bright and green and vibrant and full of life."Vita," I say, and I feel my magic swell up to the surface of my skin, most of it pouring out of my pores with no direction like an overflowing cup; but a little follows the path I'm willing it to, down my arm and through my hand and into my wand, where it's tightened and restricted and tuned to a fine point like a laser beam. The magic touches the leaves, and they quiver, hard enough that I'm worried they might fall off the branch. I double down, focusing harder on the power of life and the smell of summer and an oak tree full of dark green leaves in its prime.