Page 42 of Alchemy of Souls

“I do not care to discuss the reason for this interference.” Akari’s voice is direct. “You both failed me once. Do not fail again.” She turns around, opening the door.

The training room looks nothing like it did this morning. There’s a freestanding staircase going up twenty feet, at the top of which is a platform with two thin beams that stretch most of the length of the room. The beams must be suspended by magic, because they drop off abruptly at their ends.

“As you can see,” Akari says. “There’s a pouch hanging abovethe end of each balance beam. One of those pouches contains the potion that’ll unlock this door. You have about fifty minutes before curfew to retrieve it and get back to your dorm.”

“And if we don’t do it fast enough?” I ask, figuring there has to be a catch, because either of us could use our magic to retrieve those pouches easily.

“This room has a security system that does not welcome visitors after hours,” she says in a way that convinces me I don’t want to find out. “Also, if you’re caught out after curfew, you’ll be punished.”

We don’t have time for another punishment. We don’t even have time for this one.

“Retrieve the pouches and unlock the door. And that’s it?” Grayson asks, also skeptical.

“Not exactly,” Akari says, turning her palms up. “Place your hands on top of mine.”

I look from her palms to her face, nervous. Physical contact spells are different from normal casting, more personal, like the gap between someone handing you a shirt and dressing you in it.

The moment our hands touch, shimmering lines glow on Akari’s wrist guards. There’s a faint whoosh, like the suction of a vacuum and my hair drifts toward her. I feel strange, like I’m doing spells at warp speed, the magical version of running ten miles in a sprint. When she pulls back her hands, I sway slightly.

“I’ve drained your magic,” she says matter-of-factly, and Grayson looks thrown.

I didn’t even know that was possible.

“It’ll start coming back in a few hours,” Akari continues. “However, you’ll not have the use of your spells until then.”

There it is—the catch.

You don’t push against magical exhaustion unless you want to go unconscious or worse.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Akari says. Wisps of shimmering magic tangle around the doorframe as she goes.

Grayson doesn’t bother studying the lock and neither do I. Because even if we knew the correct spell, we have no magic. And while there are blades here that could break the wood, they’re stored behind glass that’s magicked to be shatterproof.

The only way out is to climb the stairs, which we do in silence.

I exhale as we reach the top of the platform, looking out over the long balance beams no wider than a tome in the library.

I step on my beam with one foot to test it. Seems solid. And slippery.

“How much do you want to bet we’re at the same height I would have fallen in that fight if you hadn’t cushioned the ground?” I ask.

“If you’re scared, stay here.”

My eyes narrow.

He sighs. “I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was that I was the one who got us into this.”

I stare at him. Did he just admit that he was wrong?

“I’m not saying I was wrong, though,” he continues, and I’d laugh, except it isn’t funny. “You were in danger in that fight. Danger that would have taken you out of doing spells while you healed. But when you said that was the only reason I cast, you were wrong. I didn’t want to see you get hurt. Not like that. And given the same choice, I’d do it again.”

I’m genuinely unsure what to make of that and so I break eye contact with him.

We step onto the beams at the same time.

“Did you know that Akari could drain magic?” I ask.

“Had no effing clue,” he says. “I’ve never heard of anyone having that ability before.”