Shift

THIRTEEN.2

Blaze had never tried writing a rune with water and by the time he had finished, he knew that he never wanted to ever again. He and Helio had ripped off pieces of yarn from the mop head to use as styluses, dipping them in the dirty water and dragging them across the tiled floor. Most of the marks had to be redone; they were either too thin and broke up into smaller droplets, or too thick and threatened to run into other lines. Kayden and Lexi were on hand, passing them small ripped pieces of paper towel to dab at the rune circle in times of crisis, like technologists passing instruments to a doctor during surgery.

They worked mostly in silence. By the time the last few strokes were being drawn, Blaze's arm ached gently and he had to force himself to steady his hand.

"We're good," Helio said after double-checking the rune. "But we have to hurry. The water's going to evaporate soon."

The rune ran about a meter long on the floor at the base of the wall. Blaze took the book off the ground and both he and Helio stepped into their respective spots in small adjacent circles. Kayden and Lexi pressed themselves against the opposite wall, doing their best not to interfere.

"Hold it a little towards me," Helio said, pointing at the spell book. Blaze did so. He had never shared a book while casting a spell. He hoped it wouldn't cause any major problems; he was already concerned about using water as a writing medium. Dropping the book would definitely be disastrous.

"I'll count it down," Helio said. His hazel eyes were already locked on the text. "Three, two, one."

Together they began to read.

Blaze was nervous—he knew there was a lot that could go wrong—but magic seemed much more cooperative than it had been those last few days before the shift. Within a few lines of the incantation, the water began to glow from within, as if lit with an electric current. Soon the closet was ablaze as thin lines of turquoise spell light crept upwards to outline a large square on the wall. 

Blaze felt the strain of the spell as it drained his energy, but with Helio at his side, it was a weaker tug. He hated to admit it, but they worked well together. In unison, they recited the Latin text, their voices rising and falling in a musical cadence that echoed the hills and valleys of the spell. Then, with a final string of words, the spell ended with a flash of bright white light, leaving what appeared to be a giant square hole in the wall.

Lexi's eyes were wide. "That was incredible," she breathed, clearly shocked.

"Definitely a little more exciting than the gold flecks from yesterday," Helio said, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead.

Lexi smiled shyly back at him. "That was pretty incredible too."

Blaze glanced through the wall; next door appeared to be a conference room. There were three long tables positioned in a U, a couple of windows overlooking the parking lot, and a whiteboard mounted on one wall. "We need to go through before the spell stops working. It's temporary, five minutes max."

"Sounds good," Kayden said. However, before she could charge through the opening, Blaze grabbed her shoulder.

"Hold on. Let me go through first."

Kayden raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm a girl, not an invalid."

"Well the way you were racing towards that wall, you would have been. There're still molecules there. They're just separated. You have to go through slowly."

"Oh." Her cheeks flushed red. "Well then, lead the way."

Blaze rolled his eyes and slowly put his foot forward. The hole, which appeared empty, felt thick, as if he was walking through a vat of molasses. Taking a deep breath, he slowly trudged his way through until he popped out of the other side into the conference room.

"All clear," he said, turning to everyone still inside the supply closet. "Just make sure you hold your breath. Don't want to inhale dry wall particles."

Kayden and Lexi stepped through with Helio covering the rear to make sure the two non-ers had gotten through safely.

"Snazzy room," Kayden said, touching one of the long wooden tables and tracing the grain with her finger.

"I still can't believe Naven did that," Helio said, staring at the wall behind them; it was slowly becoming more opaque as the seconds crept by. "We should go to the press, let them know what that bastard did to us. Bye bye re-election."

"And have them laugh at us?" Blaze said. "That's what happened when Walter tried to tell the press about the shift years ago. They'll just think we're some crazy attention-seeking kids—"

"That's it," Lexi said suddenly, cutting him off.

Blaze blinked. "What's it?"

"We need to go speak with Mr. Voyle." Her blue eyes brightened as she pointed to the book in Blaze's hands. "This book is his. If we convince him to pull it from the presses, the Congregation will have no choice but to shift magic back."

"But he's not going to do that," Blaze said, shaking his head. "He has an interest in the book. He's making a profit from it. I already asked him—"

"Just let me talk to him," Lexi pressed, taking a step forward so that she was uncomfortably close to him. "Trust me, I have a good feeling about this. I can convince him. We can convince him."

Blaze didn't know what to say. He looked over at Kayden who was staring at her cousin with her brows furrowed. But Helio was smiling. Could it be that he's proud of her? Blaze wondered.

Blaze shook his head, clearing out the thought. "All right," he said, taking a step back. "We have nowhere else to go right now, so we might as well try... even if I personally don't think it will work."

"It will," Lexi said with a strong nod. And then, a little bit more quietly: "It has to."