Chapter Twenty-One

Runes & Revelations

“I used to have a medicinal potions class in this area,” I offer as Soren and I amble to the corridor of abandoned classrooms. “But they stopped having classes over here because, well…”

I tip the door open, quickly showing him what I mean. The wardleweed crawls along the windows, obscuring the light and invading the room. The infestation is harmless, but not conducive to learning.

Closing the door, I sit Soren down on one of the long slabs and peel away the scarf we’ve wrapped across his wound. Last I’d checked it’d been fine, but now it seeps with a putrid bubbly green color.

“Okay, so this is sufficient to make me not want to eat for three days,” I nod, looking up at him. “I think it will be fine. It’ll be fine. Let me see what they still have in here.”

My hands shuffle through the bottles of various color liquids hidden behind the dusty glass of the cabinets.

“Ah,” I say, pulling out a few hopeful looking jars. When I turn back to Soren, I see he’s removed several layers of clothing and is sitting there in just his pants, his long back hunched over in pain, muscles rippling beneath his bare skin.

Okay. So this is happening.

Taking a deep breath as I walk back, I try not to stare at the markings all across his body. I wonder how he’s supposed to have enough room for the rest of his life—he’s carved so much magic into himself that nearly every inch of his skin seems covered in something.

I clear my throat as I come around to look at him, hoping it will also clear the sight of his body. It does not. Soren doesn’t seem uncomfortable with the fact that he’s basically disrobed in front of me, but I still try to keep my eyes from lingering any lower than the wound. Lighting the lamp on the table next to us, I start on a paste.

“What are we going to do about Nik?” he asks, watching me intently.

“I don’t think we have to worry about him.”

“I can’t just take people at their word. This is too important.”

The pestle in my fingers grinds hard into the dried sorrel, and I slide my eyes to Soren. “Wouldn’t hurt to have a wyndwitch on our side, whatever that is. Besides, he was in the forest too. You think he’s going to get himself kicked out by telling on us?”

Soren seems to be glowering instead of thinking on it.

“Anyway, might be nice for you to have another man on the team... or is that too much competition for your harem of misfit witches?” The shadow of a smirk twitches on his face, and I purse my lips. “There it is. An infamously rare smile from a Cain warlock.”

I don’t actually know anything about the other Cain men, but disapproving frowns seem like something hereditary.

“Fine,” Soren finally says. “Better with us than against us, I guess.”

“Look at that! You know what that sounded like, Soren? A vote of confidence in my judgment call!” I expect nothing less than the grimace he gives me, which I return with a charming smile. “So, we pass your test? Cause in the last hour we’ve survived”—I sweep the sorrel powder onto a cutting board, and then count on my fingers—“a wild unicorn, demon pigeons, life-ending trees, poison berries—”

“What poison berries?”

I ignore him. “And naked shadow war bears.” My eyes flicker up to him with curiosity, and I swear I see him shift guiltily.

So many secrets, Soren Cain.

“We make a decent team,” I continue. “Not very efficient, definitely questionable forethought skills, and our execution needs some work, but man do we have a lot of heart. I was the only one who didn’t really have anything to do. Boring ol’ alchemist.”

“I thought I heard you shout a war cry and then throw some sticks to defend us.”

“Oh, yeah,” I nod, pulling out the berries and presenting them to him. “The berries of which I spoke. Noxnight berries. Very toxic. Eat one, you go into a coma. Eat two, don’t even think about opening your eyes ever again.”

Soren looks at me like he’s creeped out. “Why did you keep them in your pocket, Mika? Is there something you need to tell me?”

I can’t help but laugh. “No. They’re just really, really rare.”

“Seems dangerous, to keep extremely rare, extremely poisonous berries in a forest outside of a school.”

I can’t disagree. Shrugging, I remark, “Also seems dangerous to teach kids how to cut themselves up just to produce a desired magical effect. Anyway, you have to raise the essence before you activate the toxin, and noxnight berries are, like, some of the hardest things to raise essence on. They’re perfectly harmless in this state. See?”

I pop one into my mouth. Then, for some reason, I think it will be really funny to pretend to choke for half a second. Soren, however, does not think this is funny. He leaps up, setting both hands on my shoulders, his eyes swelling with concern.

The berry pops out of my mouth with an awkward cough, and I can’t keep up the ruse. Not with that strange expression of his right up in my face. It’s like he’s actually afraid I might die or something. “Wow,” I say carefully. “That was really cute, Soren, how you almost just lost your head.”

My body braces for the flinch that will surely come when he starts to yell, but instead, he takes a deep breath. “Where else am I going to find another pink-haired alchemist so capable of getting under my skin?”

I smile sweetly. “You can charm anyone’s hair to a color suited to your perfect level of annoyance. As for the getting under your skin part... trust me, that hasn’t been difficult at all. You make it very, very easy. I think this is infected,” I say, wiping away some of the green goop. “Sit back down.”

Reluctantly, he obeys, and I set to work raising essences.

“When a pure thing defends itself against an impure thing…” Soren nods down at his wound.

“Noted.”

“What’s that?” He points at the vial I’m uncorking.

“Firehazel. One of the most powerful healing agents. Very effective at cleaning.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well,” I hesitate. “People don’t like to use it. It stings. A lot.”

Three bright orange drops fall into the mixture, and my fingers fold down into the paste, kneading the essences, powers, and firehazel together.

“My mom taught me this, actually. I have this memory of slicing my hand when I was a kid, and she used it. I was so mad at her for not telling me how much it would hurt.” I almost chuckle as the moment comes to mind. “Thus,” I announce, “you’re lucky you’ve been warned.”

I’m not sure what it is about Soren that pulls memories of her from my mind, poison from a wound. Maybe subconsciously I hope he has stories from Burnbright. That he’s heard different things about her and can rearrange my memories to make better sense of them.

My attention lifts to gauge his response, but my eyes mistakenly land a bit lower. There’s one rune on his abdomen that’s newer than the rest, the lines an angry red. I don’t love how intently I’m staring at his abs right now, but with how large and bright this rune is, it’s hardly my fault. The thing is practically calling out to me.

Soren clears his throat.

“What’s that?” I nod to it, returning my attention to my hands somewhat reluctantly.

Soren drops his eyes to his stomach, and then looks to me. “It’s the rune I was going to give you.”

The rune he wears because he’s also a revenant. I fold my lips in on themselves, a curiosity rising in me. “Neat. You wanna tell me why you could see those things in Stillwood, then? If you have a freshly re-carved rune that should stop you from seeing the shadow world?”

I give him a pointed look as I brush the remains of the chopped rhubarb into the cauldron, and spit flame underneath with a swish of my finger.

“You know, those hulking bear things with the tusks,” I remind him when he doesn’t answer. “I saw you look one square in the eye, even though no one other than me could see them.”

“It’s—not exactly the same rune,” he stammers.

“Come on, Soren Cain. Spit it out,” I say, channeling my best impression of Tomorrow Jones. “And don’t even think about lying. I can tell when you lie, you know. Or evade. You’re really good at evading.”

A long, deliberate sigh falls from his mouth—not as if he’s exasperated, but as though he’s saving time, trying to figure out what to say.

Soren Cain knows he’s caught.

“The rune keeps my soul tied to my body—” he pauses, and I stop what I’m doing to look up at him.

“Just tell me, Soren.”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, then he takes a defeated breath. “My father was Necromancy Brood and he brought me back, which is what makes me a revenant. I’ve been one my whole life. The potion we’re making—speaking of which…” Fumbling with his bag, he withdraws a small vial. “Potion is ready when you are. Three drops a day.”

He slides it between us, and I eye the chartreuse and disgruntled-looking liquid. “I’ll take it after you finish your story. Stop stalling.”

Soren presses his lips together, a tentative glance bouncing off me. “After my parents died, I didn’t have anyone to make the potion, so I began to see shadow walkers. It was more than that, though. I began to feel thin. Intangible. The difference is, Mika… when you take this potion, your soul will start to recognize your body again. It will eventually steady. Mine has never steadied.”

A frown mars my expression. “Your soul doesn’t recognize your body?”

Avoiding my eyes, his attention shifts to his rune-covered hands. “I told you I died when I was an infant, but I was stillborn. And the thing is, you can’t bring back the breath of someone who never took a breath in this world.”

My mind careens forward, gears churning over each other at an incomprehensible speed. I stare at Soren. My eyes roam his body questioningly. He’s physical. He’s real. I can see him, touch him. “But—”

The potion begins to bubble up in its crock and I jump, quickly extinguishing the flame. Seething inside is a thick, ugly brown paste that’ll rid him of the infection.

“So, what are you saying, Soren?”

“Remember how I told you about the society at Burnbright?”

“The one our parents were part of?” My brow furrows as I remember. “Ferrying people back—oh.”

“They ferried children, too,” he confirms quietly.

“Omens. Soren.”

He stares at me, and everything clicks into place. A rush of fear I can’t explain washes over me.

“I waited for years to be magically capable of contacting my father’s spirit, so I could verify what I believed was true about me.”

“You held a séance. Did it work?”

He nods solemnly.

“And what’s the truth?”

The way he looks at me makes me wonder if Soren Cain can muster the strength to say it out loud. If he’s ever been honest enough in his whole life to confess such a vulnerability to another person.

I can’t stand the weight of his stare, so I scoop out a handful of the concoction. Hesitantly, I set my hand on his wound, rubbing the paste across his collar bone, up and over across his broad shoulder. I do my best to keep my breathing even.

“The Knights were dissolved when our parents came into power. There were no more active missions. But my father’s spirit confirmed that after this body was delivered, someone brought my soul back from a mission in a parallel dimension called Andromeda. They put me in the shell of my body, and my father raised it from the dead.”

An uncertain expression ripples across my face, and my eyes turn to him. “You’re a shadow walker who’s taken bodily form,” I whisper.

He is the very thing he’s been warning me against.

Soren studies me. Our faces are so close that I can see the whorls of green and brown in Soren’s bright blue eyes. “Yes,” he confesses. “Except, the form I’ve taken is my own—I am Soren Cain, or some version of him. But my existence is not allowed. My parents kept it a secret. At the Claiming...”

“We all have to sign our name in the Tome of Ages,” I finish.

“My name won’t hold. Not unless I properly belong to this world. Everyone will discover what I am.”

“Does your uncle know?”

“I think he suspects.”

“And he wouldn’t... protect you?”

Soren’s eyes lock with mine. “I honestly don’t know, Mika. And that’s why I need this spell to work. It has to work.” That fleeting glimpse of desperation is etched all over his face again. Finally, I understand it.

My hand rubs the paste into his skin idly to keep busy, and I’m afraid to stop—afraid to interrupt this stream of honesty with any sudden movements. “What does the spell do?”

“What the potion and the rune can’t. It will fully seal my soul into this body, once and for all.”

“It’s a soul transference spell. That’s why it’s so dangerous.”

He nods. “Extremely dangerous. Very illegal. So, you understand why I need this to work with us. The group. I don’t have time to start over, and I can’t risk telling others at Spellfall who might leverage such a thing against me. Please don’t tell anyone, Mika.”

For the first time, Soren isn’t barking an order at me. He’s asking a favor.

I think of Sabbath and what a ginormous sin of omission this has the potential to be. Then I think of what could happen to Soren if anyone finds out, and I nod. “Okay,” I agree quietly. “You know, it is actually possible to ask people for help without blackmailing them. Or bribing them. Both of which you’ve done.” I incline my head.

Soren scowls. “Would you have helped me if I didn’t?”

I consider it, and I’m not sure. Still, I decide to tell him the truth. “I hope that I’d be the kind of witch who helps others, even when I don’t like them. Would you have kept giving me the invisible rune every night, if your soul spell failed miserably, and there was no potion to help me?”

“Now that I know you, yes.”

Just because we’ve been alone for half an hour and have made it farther down the path of not killing each other than ever before, doesn’t mean he knows me. I’ll take it as progress, though.

“They were friends, you know. Our parents. Before everything.”

It’s merciful, the ambiguity of his words. I appreciate that he doesn’t wield my mother’s crimes like a carving knife against me when he has every right to.

“No,” I protest. “A Carrow and a Cain? Friends? Can’t be.”

“They were,” he insists. “Very close.”

I don’t want to believe him, because it would mean that my mother had murdered someone she’d cared about. Then again, she didn’t really consider me before she went and blew up the whole world, so.

“My father never told me.”

“Are you close with him? Your father?”

“No,” I shake my head. “Sometimes I wonder... I wonder if I look too much like her, or something. If he’s afraid to love me.” I halt, unsure why I’ve confessed this. “Were you close, with your parents?” The words rush out in a hurry to cover for my reddening cheeks.

Soren frowns. “Not particularly. I think I might have been forged, more than I was raised.” His voice cuts off sharply with a quick inhale of pain.

“Oh, here comes the worst part. You don’t have to talk.”

“It distracts me,” he grunts. “Ask me something.”

I hop up on the table next to him. “Well,” I say, letting my eyes roam his body. Muscles ripple under his skin, tensed with discomfort. “Why don’t you tell me about these runes.”

I can’t tell if there’s any rhyme or reason to their placement, if they tell a chronological tale of his life. I wonder how long it’s taken him to collect so many scars, if they were carved into his skin by his own hand or by other's.

“What’s that?” I ask, motioning toward a square with a series of overlapping triangles.

He winces, the sting worsening. “It’s a symbol from a brotherhood at Burnbright.”

“Oh, fancy. Is there a spell that comes along with it?”

“I got it to honor my friend. The necromancer who died.”

My brows duck empathetically. I forgot that Soren had a friend die. Maybe he sympathizes with Tuesday Jones more than I realize. “How’d it happen?”

“The séance we did for my father. He forgot to perform the blood cleanse, and the spirits came for his magic.”

“Blood cleanse?”

Soren hesitates. “Performing large magic leaves traces in your blood, and it draws the spirits’ hunger. It’s called blood poisoning when magic is taken from your blood without proper ritual. It sends the body into shock.”

“I’m sorry, Soren.”

He doesn’t reply, just grits his teeth, jaw bulging, and I get the sense I should continue.

“And that rune,” I point. “What’s that one from?”

“I thought you weren’t interested in runes.”

“Oh, I’m not, but I gotta keep you talking through the pain somehow.” I’m not all that interested in the runes, it’s true. I’m mostly just interested in him.

“What’s this.” I point at the blank space on the slope of his shoulder where there’s a mysterious absence of scarring. It’s the only part of his body—that I can see, at least—where this seems to be the case.

“I’ve never been able to get a rune to stick there.”

“Weird,” I reply. “And that?” There’s a long line that bows slightly inward across the top of his hand.

“A cat scratched me when I was a child.”

“Ah…” I nod. “Your first venture into the world of runes. That cat must have really left an impression.”

“It was a kitten, actually,” he says, remembering.

I raise a brow. “I’m shocked you let something so small and fierce that close to you. You really let your guard down.”

Soren narrows his eyes, staring at me with a strange new intensity. “I don’t make that mistake often.”

I bite my lip, looking from him to his wound. “Is the pain easing?”

He nods, and I begin wiping the salve away. His skin, runes and all, are totally intact underneath. “I am amazing,” I say. “And you. Well, you’ve successfully survived both a scratch from a kitten, and a stabbing from a unicorn in your lifetime—with the scars to prove it, no less. Getting on up there with the heroes of our time, Soren Cain.”

I’ve earned myself those perfect pair of dimples. My heart swells up proudly and pathetically, my fingers beginning to spark. I leap away from Soren, startled, and the feeling dims to just a murmur in my fingertips. “What in the unholy—”

Soren holds his hand out to find that his skin dances with the same faint current of energy. When I lift mine to match his, a magical charge bubbles up between us, spitting out blue flames.

“What is this, Soren?” I accuse.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”

He drops his hand suddenly like he doesn’t want to find out. All I can figure is that maybe the strength of our mutual contempt has manifested into some strange sort of magical force.

For once, my instincts seem to agree with his; whatever this is brewing between us, it certainly can’t be good.

Yay, I LOVE Mika and Soren scenes! What about that big reveal, huh?! Were you expecting Soren to be a shadow walker? And what are your theories about the "magical spark" between them? Spill your thoughts in the comments!

xx Jessa

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