Soul Sweet Soul

In the week that followed, Mason didn’t say a word about his plans to get the wand back from Ernest, despite his insistence that he wasn’t giving up. Felix was dying to know what he was planning, but he had bigger things to worry about. Every time he felt he was really starting to master one of his family’s abilities, Sebastian would throw a new challenge at him that made him feel like a beginner all over again.

It only added to his stress when Archer, Kendra, Hana, and a few Guardians Felix didn’t know the names of showed up at a training session one afternoon. Archer insisted it wasn’t an official assessment, simply a check on Felix’s progress, but Felix still felt the way he did when he walked into a test he hadn’t studied for.

“Ready?” Sebastian asked.

Right. Time to focus. Felix lifted his hands and adjusted his stance. “Ready.”

Sebastian nodded at Arisa. “Go ahead.”

“Remember, they’ll be harder to destroy because they’re imbued with magic,” Arisa warned. The tiny garden statues Sebastian had picked up at a hardware store came to life. A gnome, a plastic flamingo, and a stone rabbit launched themselves at Felix.

Felix torched the flamingo first. Its plastic body began to melt, but it continued its approach. Felix jumped out of its way and fired a blast of flame at the gnome. The fire barely left a mark. He switched to Helena’s lightning and hit the gnome with a blast that completely shattered it.

A vine burst from the ground and wrapped around the flamingo. Thorns popped out and sank into the plastic. While the flamingo was pulled into the dirt, Felix turned in a circle, searching for the stone rabbit.

It tackled his calf with enough force to send him toppling over. He flung his hands up in front of his face as he landed on his back. The rabbit sprang at him with outstretched paws, aiming for his chest. Felix sent a burst of electricity at the rabbit to fling it backwards.

“You don’t have much power behind your fire,” Sebastian noted as Felix sat up.

“What do you mean?” Felix asked. “It’s fire.” The rabbit jumped at him again. He summoned a vine from the dirt. The vine wrapped around the rabbit and slammed it against the ground.

“It feels weaker than your other abilities. Like there’s not as much energy going into it.” Sebastian shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. It will probably strengthen over time. Let’s work on May’s ability.”

Felix groaned. “I hate using that one. When is it ever going to be useful?”

I saved your ass from those demons, remember ? May chimed in.

“I don’t like turning into water. And why would I do that when I can throw fire or lightning at something?”

“You might be in a situation where you have stone, but not metal,” Sebastian said.

“Okay, slim chance, but sure.” Felix climbed to his feet. “Water’s still weaker, most of the time.”

“You’d be surprised. Don’t underestimate it. Especially holy water.” Sebastian lifted his fists. “Here, give it a try against me in combat.” Lowering his voice so that Archer and the other Guardians couldn’t hear, he asked, “How much have you used it without May being in control?”

Felix couldn’t keep his surprise off his face. “How did you—?” He hadn’t told anyone besides Mason or Arisa about the possession thing, still terrified he’d be locked up.

“I suspected it could be a possibility from the start. You described using May’s ability in the fight against the demons, but when we first tried it in training you could barely move,” Sebastian replied. “Then there was that tree Ezra grew in the clearing with the wolves, which was far beyond anything else you did with his ability—”

“What’s going on?” Archer asked.

Sebastian shot him a glance. “Just a moment.” His eyes moved back to Felix. His hands lowered. “We often use more power in a life-or-death situation than we do in training, but that doesn’t give us a miraculous level of control over our abilities.”

“Okay, yeah,” Felix conceded quietly. “May took over at the office building, and I asked Ezra to control me in the clearing.”

“Did your dad project the memories in Mason’s dagger for you at the council meeting, too?” Sebastian asked.

Felix shook his head. “I wanted him to, but he made me do it myself.”

“Really?” Sebastian lifted an eyebrow. “That’s impressive. Good job.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m glad he had you do it alone. You need to learn to control these abilities yourself.” Sebastian’s fists moved back up into the air. “Better to figure it out now while you’re in training, and not in the middle of a fight with monsters that want you dead.”

“Fine.” Felix closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and…

Nothing.

Felix opened one eye. “May?”

Oh, what, you want my ability? I thought it was stupid.

“May, come on!”

Here’s an idea: Let me use the ability, if you have such a problem with it. I’ll totally kick Sebastian’s ass.

Felix laughed. “No way.”

I’m serious!

Felix replied in his head so that Sebastian couldn’t hear him. Fine. Do it. I’m going to laugh when you fail.

Sure. I mean, it’s your body. May’s presence expanded from his mind to take over his entire body. Before Felix could adjust to his loss of control, he turned to water.

May whipped around the combat box with surprising speed. For a minute or so, Sebastian effortlessly dodged her as she twisted into a whip and attempted to strike him in the face. When he switched to delivering blows of his own, she avoided them with surprising ease. Until his hand cut up through the air from below and punched a hole through the center of the water mass.

Felix landed on his back, his form now solid. He was in control of his body again, but the air had been knocked from his lungs.

Sebastian dropped to one knee next to him. “Very impressive, but you weren’t in control.” He said, his voice low. “I’m not testing your sister’s skill, I’m testing yours.”

Felix felt May beam. He thinks I’m impressive—

Shut up, Felix shot back. I’m the student here, not you. He climbed to his feet. Quietly, he said, “I don’t see why I can’t just let her possess me in a fight—”

“It takes extra energy to maintain their presence, doesn’t it?” Sebastian asked. “It’s a waste of power you could otherwise be using to fuel your magic. Plus, we still have Gideon to worry about.”

“All right. I’ll try doing it myself.” Felix took a deep breath and willed himself to melt back into a puddle of water. He tried lifting himself off the ground, but his new body refused to cooperate.

Hey, Felix, here’s a tip, May said. Stop trying to move the water like you would your body.

Huh? Felix thought back.

You keep trying to move sections of water like they’re arms and legs. They’re not. You’re one complete unit, so act like it.

Felix forced himself to relax. For a moment, he let himself feel every drop of water, taking it all in as one continuous mass.

He lifted himself into a shaky pillar. After a few seconds of struggling, he collapsed back into a puddle. He transformed back into his own body. How the hell did May zip through the air the way she did?

“That was great!” Sebastian said, despite the fact that Felix was lying on his back, drenched in water, and gasping for air.

“Really?” Felix wheezed as he sat up. “I didn’t even come close to attacking you that time.”

“Guardians who have the ability to transform into elements like that take a long time just to learn to control their body, let alone wield it in combat,” Sebastian told him. “That pillar was a good start.”

“What’s he doing now?” Archer called. “That’s nothing like how he was fighting a minute ago.”

“We’re, uh, trying a different technique,” Sebastian replied.

Felix rested a hand against May’s stone in his pocket.

Mason looked up from the book he was reading. “Does the amount of channeling material present affect his ability to wield an element?”

“Good question,” Sebastian said. “No, more material doesn’t increase the amount of magical energy he can draw from his body, though you do need a minimum amount of the material for the channeling to work.”

“But there is a way to draw ambient magical energy to you through your channeling material, isn’t there?” Arisa asked. “I swear one of my old teachers said they did that once.”

“Yes, it’s possible, but it takes years of experience to do right. And it’s dangerous,” Sebastian said. “Not recommended unless you’re completely out options. It typically damages or breaks the channel material, and that can get explosive fast. Not to mention that you wouldn’t be able to channel your ability if the material you’re using is destroyed.”

“Interesting.” Mason glanced down at his book and turned the page. “There are similar principles with spellwork. You can generate more power, but it results in your ritual tools breaking.”

Sebastian nodded. “Well, good job today, Felix.”

Felix smiled as he stood up. “Thanks.”

His sense of accomplishment was short-lived. Sebastian clapped a hand against his shoulder and added, “Keep this training up every day for a few years, and you’ll make a great Guardian.”

“Years?”

Sebastian ignored the despair in Felix’s voice. “That’s all for today,” he announced. The Guardians who’d been watching dispersed. Felix moved to join Arisa and Mason as they headed inside. Dinner sounded like the best thing in the world right now.

Archer appeared at Felix’s right and held out a hand to stop him from following the others through the door. “Sebastian’s doing a fine job training you.”

Felix swallowed. “Uh huh?”

“But I’d like to give you some advice of my own,” Archer continued. “Meet me out in front of the castle after dinner.”

It didn’t sound like there was room to argue. Felix nodded. “Sure.”

He caught up to a confused Mason and Arisa and explained. Their confusion turned to concern, and they debated what Archer might want with him as they headed toward the dining hall.

“There’s probably only a fifty-fifty chance he’s going to kill me, right?” Felix asked as they stepped into the dining hall line.

“He’s not going to kill you,” Arisa assured him.

“We don’t know that,” Mason muttered as he began loading his tray with nothing but desserts.

“If he does want to train you, though, you might get a little roughed up.”

Felix groaned. “I’m already exhausted. All the time. I just want a nap.”

Sleep would have to wait. Felix ate his food as slowly as possible, but when he spotted Archer standing at the dining hall entrance and scowling, he jumped to his feet and quickly dumped his tray. Archer vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving Felix to wander to the front of the castle by himself.

“Your fire comes from your mother, correct?” Archer asked the moment Felix stepped outside.

Felix jumped. “Uh, yeah.”

“Follow me.”

They walked to the top of a nearby hill and stopped in the long shadows cast by the trees around them. The setting sun turned the sky a deep orange and cast a dramatic glow over the thick clouds passing by overhead.

“Is the sun…actually the sun?” Felix asked as he stared in its direction. “You know, since we’re in a pocket dimension?”

“Yes. The sky overhead is essentially a portal to the real sky over Washington,” Archer explained. He turned to face Felix. “You speak to your family regularly?”

Felix nodded.

“But you haven’t had any interaction with Gideon?”

“There’s still no sign of him, except that my family said they can sense his presence sometimes,” Felix said. “I’m pretty sure as long as I don’t tap into his power, he’ll stay unconscious in my blood or soul or whatever.”

Archer drew his sword, taking Felix by surprise. Felix hadn’t even realized the weapon had been at Archer’s back. “We’re going to try something,” Archer said. “Instead of pulling your family out of your soul, we’re going to send you in.”

“Huh?”

“With enough focus, it’s possible for a Guardian to enter their own soul, similar to how you would a dream.”

“Oh, I remember my dad saying something about that,” Felix said. “But how do I do it?”

“The most common way is meditation—” Archer started.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d be very good at that.”

Archer’s eyes narrowed.

Felix winced. “Uh, but I mean, I guess I could try—”

“We’re going to do something quicker.” Archer peeled off one of his gloves. “I’m going to poison you.”

“Wh—what?”

“It’s completely safe. I can remove the poison at any time, and this one doesn’t have any permanent effects.” Archer rested the blade of his sword against his palm. “But it will induce a level of unconsciousness that will drive you into your soul.”

“How long will I be in there?” Felix asked.

“I’ll pull you back out in twenty minutes, no matter what. But time might pass differently for you in there.”

Felix’s brow furrowed. “And what exactly am I trying to do?”

“Assess your connections to your family’s abilities. Particularly your mother’s fire.” Dark purple liquid welled on Archer’s skin. “Hold out your arm.”

Felix pulled up his sleeve and stuck his arm out. Archer placed his palm on Felix’s wrist. “It will enter your blood through your skin,” he explained. “It only needs a few seconds to take effect—”

Felix opened his eyes in a black void. He turned around. “Hello?”

Scenery materialized around him. Grass, a wooden fence, a patio, his house…he was in his backyard. He hadn’t been out here since before the day Gideon attacked. He turned in a slow circle, taking it all in.

“Felix?”

Felix spun. His Mom stood at the back door. He blinked, hardly able to believe the sight. It only took a moment for him to unfreeze. “Mom!” He ran to her and threw his arms around her.

They lingered in the embrace for a moment before Mom pulled back. She smiled at Felix, but there was confusion in her gaze. “What are you doing in here?”

“I guess I’m here to talk to you.” Felix rubbed the back of his neck. “About your fire ability.”

“Let’s sit down.” Mom moved to the patio table and pulled out a chair.

Felix slid into the chair next to her. “Where is everyone else?”

“Inside the house, if they’re conscious right now,” Mom said. “It’s not uncommon for the soul to take on the shape of someone’s home.”

“Can you go into your own soul?” Felix asked.

“I could when I was alive, but now my soul is all that I am.” Mom rested a hand on Felix’s. “How is your training going? I watch when I can, but I didn’t see today’s session.”

“It went pretty well. But I’m having a hard time putting a lot of power into my fire,” Felix told her. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure it had been stronger the first couple of times he’d used it than it was now. What had happened?

Mom frowned. “I don’t know why that would be.”

“Me neither.” Felix looked down at the table. “I mean, it’s not like you’re keeping it from me on purpose like May was.”

“What was May doing?” Her tone sharpened.

Felix glanced up. “Oh, uh, it was just for like a minute during training. It wasn’t really that big of a deal—”

Mom turned her head back toward the house. “May Eleanor Carver, don’t take your ability away from Felix, he needs it!”

May’s voice called back faintly. “I didn’t!”

“Yes you did!” Felix yelled back.

“Shut up!”

“There’s more to controlling the fire than you think,” Mom said, her attention moving back to Felix. “The thing about Helena’s electricity is that once you let go of it, it dissipates. My fire can keep moving and spreading and burning. You have to be careful.”

Something clicked. Felix’s eyes widened. “I think you are holding back the fire. You’re scared.”

“I promise I’m not trying to keep it away from you,” Mom told him. “And I am scared for you. But that’s why I’m glad you can use our abilities to protect yourself.”

“I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose,” Felix replied. “Now that I know how magic feels, though, I think I lost some of my power after I burned myself and Arisa in training. I know I had full access to it when I first started.” He pulled his hand from Mom’s to stare at the spot where the burn had been. “I haven’t thought about it much since it healed. But—”

“That did scare me,” Mom murmured.

“You can’t protect me from myself,” Felix said. “I have to learn to control it at full strength.”

Mom’s shoulders sagged. “Okay. I’ll try to relax my hold on the fire, and we’ll see if that helps.” She rose to her feet and gave Felix a sad smile. “You should try coming in here more often. It would be nice for us all to be together again.”

Felix nodded. It took him a moment to speak. “I will,” he promised. Rising to his feet, he added, “But before I go, we need to talk about…everything else.”

Mom frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know what to do about anything!” Felix blurted. “Sebastian thinks there are Moonlit Army spies at the castle, and Ernest Abernathy wants us dead, and I don’t know how to focus on learning to kill monsters when I have no idea who to trust.”

Mom let out a heavy sigh and pulled Felix in for another hug. “I was hoping you’d have more time before you had to worry about all this,” she told him. “We know bits and pieces of what’s going on. We weren’t very active Guardians, but we were aware of the growing concerns around the Uprising and their possible return.”

Felix tightened his arms around her. “Why did Gideon kill you, then?”

“Because…” Mom hesitated. “We were guarding something that might powerful enough to defeat the Moonlit Army. It was supposed to be a secret, but we had to get help containing it, so there was always a chance that word would spread.”

That sparked something in Felix’s memory. May had said something…what was it? We thought we’d have time to tell you what we were protecting.

“What were you protecting?” Felix asked.

“It’s safe, for now. You don’t need to worry about it,” Mom said quickly. “Gideon thought we were keeping it at the house, but he was wrong. It’s somewhere his leader will never be able to find it.”

Felix pulled back from her. His stinging eyes met hers. “Tell me!”

“It’s too dangerous to give you that information right now.” Mom placed a hand on Felix’s shoulder and gave him a sad smile. “For now, you need to focus on becoming strong.”

Felix wanted to plead for more information, to know what his family had died for, but then his house was gone and the yard was gone and Mom was fading into the darkness. His eyes opened.

“How do you feel?” Archer asked.

Felix was lying on his back in the grass, looking up at the darkening clouds. His senses gradually returned to him. “A little groggy,” he said as he sat up. There was no pain, though, so he suspected Archer had caught him and laid him down gently rather than letting him fall.

Archer nodded. “That should pass in a few minutes.”

“I talked to my mom.” Felix rose to his feet. “I think I can do it now.”

Archer lifted his sword and took a step back. “Let’s see it, then.”

Felix started by summoning a small fireball. It was a good thing he started small, because it came out three times the size he expected. Archer sidestepped and stuck out his sword to stop the fireball before it could scorch a tree. Then, he brought the sword in a slow arc toward Felix’s face.

Felix threw up his hand and pressed it against the flat side of the blade, pushing it back, intending to summon electricity and send it down the blade at Archer. As his hand made contact with the metal, though, a heaviness washed over him. The weight of its memory. The last thing he saw was the evening sunlight shining off the red metal rose on the pommel. Darkness swallowed him.

In the void, a younger version of Archer stood in the distance. He had his black hair pulled up the same way he usually kept it, but there was no mask hiding his face. His sword hung at his back.

A familiar man stepped out of the darkness. “Ready to lose?” he asked. It was the necromancer, Felix realized. His face was free of scars, and he wore a Guardian uniform with a shirt the same bone white as his curls of hair. A rectangle took shape on the ground around them, not made from Sebastian’s light, but from ordinary yellow spray paint.

Archer drew his sword from the scabbard on his back. “We’ll see.”

The memory changed. The sword cut through the chest of a different man in a Guardian’s uniform. He dropped to the ground, and more bodies appeared around him, lying around Archer’s feet. Before Felix could look at Archer’s face, the scene shifted again.

A girl lay dead on the ground. Short auburn hair the same shade as King Atticus’s fell over her face. Then she was upright, facing Archer, but she hovered in the air above him, her form semi-transparent.

The flashes came faster. Felix glimpsed a woman with long waves of silvery-white hair standing under a full moon in a tattered blue gown. A younger version of King Atticus lifting his crown to his head. Young Sebastian, laughing, suddenly standing right next to Archer—

Felix pulled himself free from the memory and staggered back, away from Archer.

“Is something wrong?” Archer asked.

It took a moment for Felix to recall what was happening in the present. He forced his mind to focus. “Yeah, I just…don’t want to set anything on fire. I don’t know if fighting out here by the trees is a good idea.”

Archer lowered his weapon. “Okay. I don’t want you throwing fire around if you’re nervous. You can work on controlling it with Sebastian tomorrow.” After a long moment, he added, “Good job.”

Praise? From Archer? That was new. It was hard for Felix to appreciate it, though, being as rattled as he was.

Felix glanced back at the spot on the grass where he’d been laying. “So, I can go into my soul on my own?”

“Yes, but it takes a lot of practice. It’s difficult even for experienced Guardians,” Archer said. He started back toward the castle, and Felix followed. “It’s usually used to deal with power blocks, like you just did, or to refine dangerous techniques in a safe environment.”

Felix understood the gist of it, but he couldn’t help but wonder how safe an environment his soul truly was.

What would Gideon be capable of if he awoke?