Page 59 of Alchemy of Souls

He shakes off the memory, placing my boots down. “You ready?” he asks.

And suddenly my heart is back in my throat.

“I want you to be sure,” he says, and it makes me think more of him for checking.

“I’m sure,” I say, hoping I sound confident.

“Cast when you’re ready,” he says.

I am ready. All my thoughts about my family are hitting hard. It’s them I picture when I pull up the wood from the sky gazebo floor. My feelings about that cleaning spell mix with my fierce desire to change things, to make them right. Even my song shifts—it’s a little wilder, more intense.

But as the box begins to take shape, Grayson grabs my hand and flings me right the hell over the edge.

CHAPTER 31Grayson

To her credit, Eloise doesn’t scream when I throw her off the side of the five-story tower onto a tiny platform I spellworked out of glass. But she also abandons her usual PG language for the real deal.

“Finish your box spell, Eloise,” I tell her, my hand creating a wind spell to hold her steady. “Because I don’t know how long this platform will support your weight.”

She gives me a look like I better be joking, but behind that look is… trust? When was the last time someone trusted me?

She doesn’t whine or demand I bring her back; she just lifts her chin. She’s terrified to sneak out after curfew, but will dangle sixty-odd feet in the air and face it like a champ?

Despite her resolve, the spell doesn’t come smoothly, her magic responding to her growing need and fear. Her song reverberates within the gazebo and it’s nothing short of wild, her magic pulling from the wood of the tower, making it jump and sputter like popcorn in a cast-iron pan.

Her box doesn’t have roses this time, or thorns, or even a middle finger. It’s in the shape of a lion, and as she ties the finishing knot it settles onto the floor as though it curled up to sleep.

I reach out to her, taking her slender hand in mine and pulling her back onto the tower roof.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, something shimmers in the air.

We both turn, and her hand slips out of mine. But just as quickly, it’s gone.

“Did you see that?” she demands. “Was thatthe Key?”

“I don’t know what else it could have been,” I admit, a little stunned.

“You saw the air shimmer? Right? Because it did the same thing at the Academy before it appeared,” she says quickly.

“I definitely saw the shimmer,” I confirm, and the whole mood shifts.

Hope. It shifts to hope, and the scent of hers is heady.

“Grayson,” she says, enunciating my name excitedly in a way I could get used to. “Did we justalmost call the Key?”

A grin spreads across my face and she grins right back. And before I can think not to, I pick her up and twirl her. Even more miraculous, she doesn’t pull a dagger on me—she laughs.

“Let’s do it again,” she says enthusiastically as I place her back on the ground. So, we do. She does the spell suspended on the glass platform until our magic wanes and it’s no longer safe, but the shimmer never reappears.

She paces across the gazebo, her hair blowing around her face in the warm night breeze. “Why can’t we replicate it? We’re doing the same spell in the same way and I’m definitely not comfortable on that platform.”

“Maybe it’s not just the spell,” I say. “Maybe there’s another factor we’re not thinking of.”

She stops to consider it. “The shimmer didn’t actually happen during the spell, which is interesting. It happened after, when I was standing safely back on the tower and—”

“And what?” I say when she doesn’t complete the thought.

All of a sudden, I scent her embarrassment. She hesitates.