Page 75 of Ember and Ash

“I almost died, and all you can do is lecture me? Really? Stop making me read everything and tell me what you know, and maybe I wouldn’t be here right now. To humans, beaches are about rest and relaxation. We don’t fear giant crabs.”

He eyes the cauldron and grits his teeth. “What the fuck is that?”

“I told you to stop saying that. The house showed me a spellbook—”

He catches my arm, and not gently, yanking me to him, our bodies colliding, intimately close, a mix of his anger and his magic a current dancing along my skin. “We talked about this,” he bites out. “You’re too powerful to play with magic you do not understand. You wait on me. Wait, Ember.”

“You didn’t say anything about me being too powerful to play with magic. In fact, you told me to believe in my abilities. I wasn’t trying to call the serpent this time. And I don’t have time to wait on you. Not when Jeremy is waiting on me.”

“Time passes differently here. How many times do I need to explain that? We have time, and training is everything.”

“Let me go, Micah, or I’ll do what any self-respecting human would do and knee you where your most precious Overseer jewels rest. I’d like to know if a Nephilim hurts with a knee as badly as a man.”

He grunts at the very idea and releases me, his hands settling on his hips. “I’m trying to protect you, you know that, right?”

“You told me to let the house help me. Well, the house gave me a book and even a page. It kept going back to that page. It told me what to try. And so, I did.”

“What spell?”

“Turning water to fire. And I thought it would be safer to try by the water, where fire can’t survive. The water in the cauldron did nothing, but the ocean started to boil. And why could I do that, but I can’t rift? I tried to just get the hell out of here, but I was stuck.”

“The beach is spellcasted with powerful magic to stop you from rifting.”

“Why?”

“It’s an extra safety precaution to ensure the homestead is safe.”

My heart starts to race. “You said no one could get in here. Can they?”

“No magic is infallible. You need to learn that. That’s why I take precautions on top of precautions.” He shifts the topic. “My men are at the house. They want to meet you. And no, we cannot rift out of here. We have to walk.”

I eye the cliff. “Why did it let me rift down here but not out of here?”

“It’s how the spell works, and I did that for my own reasons.” He rotates away from me and starts walking with the confidence of an Overseer who knows his subject will follow. He’s not wrong. I follow him.

I want off this beach where the beauty of the sand deceived me into a façade of safety. A little like the darkness of my destiny hiding behind the façade of my humanity for twenty-seven years.

And then, of course, there is Micah.

The Overseer with crystal blue eyes and an island that bleeds from the sky.

He told me demons can’t visit Elysium, but he spellcast the shoreline. If he’s not worried about demons, what is he worried about?

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

Everyone bleeds red but demons.

Chapter thirty-seven

That blood-red sunset that has lingered, eternally it seems, abruptly begins to darken, and I double-step to catch up with Micah. “What are you trying to keep out of Elysium? What the heck is going to jump out at us as we walk?”

“Nothing. You’re with me. Which is exactly why I told you to wait on me.”

“How many times are you going to insist you said that to me when you didn’t? You told me Elysium is safe. Why wouldn’t I go to the beach when generally humans, which I thought I was most of my life, consider it a comfort spot?”

He grunts, a hollow sound of guilt. “Read first. Explore later, with me, as I can teach you how to protect yourself.”

“Why spellcast the beach?”