Rafe opened another door, then closed it again with an expression of disgust, but at least he kept talking. “I think perhaps the easiest way for me to tell you what I can do is to tell you what I can’t.” He held up a finger. “I’m not a healer or a spontaneous manifester.” A second finger. “I don’t make anyone feel welcome or charmed, and no one would consider me a master of negotiation.” Third finger. “I’m not a mind mage, nor a healer of the mind. Notice a theme here?”
I stared at him, suddenly getting it. “Those are all abilities that the other guys have, in varying degrees. Luke is starting to seriously up his manifestation game, and he’s a solid healer. Connor is great with negotiations and people in general, and his charm is arguably his best skill, after his spell craft. Marcus is a strong secondary healer, obviously a mind mage, and less obviously…” I broke off sharply, as really freaking amazing in bed didn’t seem to be super useful information.
Rafe snorted. “You really need to do a better job of masking your emotions.”
“Who said I was trying?” I retorted. “But that leaves quite a bit. So far, on the other teams, we’ve also run into illusionists, oracles, seers, and strategists, something called a prism mage that I’m still kind of confused about—”
“Don’t worry about being confused about it. You are one, just at a higher level. Since you are one, there’s no need for me to be one. The symmetry holds.”
“So you chose the guys at the academy, even Cynthia, because they complemented your magical strengths?” I asked him, borderline aghast. “Seriously? That’s how you choose your friends?”
He shot me a cold look. “How exactly do you choose your friends?”
I couldn’t help myself, I barked a laugh. Other than the guys, I had no friends. As Rafe very well knew.
“Okay, okay. Point taken. You came to Twyst Academy with an agenda. You surveyed the class. You identified the mages most likely to help you accomplish that task, and you bonded with them, right from the start.” I knew I shouldn’t go there, but I couldn’t help myself. “And then you decided on Cynthia to complete you.”
“I could tell easily enough that she would have strong skills as an oracle and a witch. The witchcraft part was not entirely necessary, given Connor’s and my abilities as spell casters. But doubling up on abilities is never a bad strategy. Of all the other girls in our class, Cynthia was the most talented.”
I resisted saying goody for her, but it was a near thing. #Grownup
By this time, we were back where we started, the empty storeroom at the back of the building. Rafe looked around, scowling as he continued.
“Then you came along. Though it took me a while to track you down, even after I sensed your presence. I should have found you sooner.”
His indignation made me smile. “Because you’re a seer?
To my surprise, he shook his head. “No. Remember, I had singled out Cynthia as a member of our team. Her oracular abilities would have more than sufficed for that particular skill. Besides, seeing the future is not always straightforward or useful. As you have already experienced with Cynthia, her predictions are incomplete. I believe you called them gobbledygook. That makes their substance open to interpretation, which is not always ideal in matters of prediction. My skills lie more predominantly in the analysis of the facts and the modeling of likely outcomes based on those facts.”
“So basically, educated guessing,” I said.
He gave me a wry chuckle. “That is definitely one way of putting it. And that educated guesswork is now leading me to an interesting realization.”
I looked around the room. “I’m way ahead of you. This is the only room of any size that’s completely empty, and it’s the one the door led us right into. What are the odds of that?”
He slanted me a glance. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Not even remotely. But how do we—”
I waved my hand to the empty space as Rafe turned to me, and my fingers brushed the edge of his shoulder. When they did, the space around us shivered a little, brightening and taking shape. I jerked my hand away, queasy with the stinging shot of raw power that sliced through me, even as one of Rafe’s hands came up.
“You saw that too, didn’t you?” he asked sharply.
I grimaced. “I did see it. Please tell me I don’t have to touch you to make it happen again.”
“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t ask it of you, but it does seem like…”
As he spoke, he stepped closer to me and adjusted his messenger bag to sit flatter against his body. Then, his gaze meeting mine to make sure it was okay, he lifted his hand toward my shoulder. I blew out a long breath and nodded. His lips worked into a smile.
“This will only hurt a little…” he said, his words both rueful and amused.
He closed his fingers over my shoulder, and I gasped, screwing my eyes closed as I was overtaken with a flood of sensation. It wasn’t horribly painful this time so much as it was overwhelmingly intense. My stomach pitched sideways and my legs wobbled as I widened my stance, trying to keep upright. Where Rafe’s fingers grazed my neck, my skin flared with a sharp sting, but only for a moment. Then that sensation was replaced with a wash of deep, clarifying heat. As if pure source energy flooded me.
“Maddigan,” Rafe whispered, and my eyes flew open again to see that we no longer stood in an empty storeroom, but in a chamber filled with shimmering books and boxes of every shape and size lining the tables. They ranged from tiny jeweled cases to large wooden crates, all of them glowing with promise and power.
“What the hell is this?” I breathed.
“I would say this is the library of…maybe the agency? Not the academy, I don’t think. It doesn’t have the feel of a Twystian space.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you seriously just say Twystian? Like, am I going to have to make a Twystian bargain at some point? Because I’m not sure I could do that with a straight face.”
Rafe wasn’t paying attention to me, however. Instead he held up his left hand as if he was translating the energy of the room—or trying to. “It’s got to be the archived contents of the agency’s history, or maybe just their history with Twyst, or…shit, I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “But we were looking for something to help us win the Mage Trials, and this is what the door opened up onto. It has to be something along those lines.”
He looked at me, and for the first time, he seemed truly excited. His eyes were alight with pleasure, his mouth stretched into a grin. Not a snarky sardonic twist of his lips, but real eagerness.
“We’re never going to have time to read through all this,” I protested, not knowing what else to say. I acutely felt the pressure of his hand against my neck, and a self-conscious shiver rolled through me.
Rafe, seeming to sense my discomfort, lifted his hand from my shoulder as he turned. Instantly, the image wavered, and he slapped his hand back down. No serious pain this time, just a quick wincing bite, a shooting thrill of connection. We stared at each other a long moment. Then I started whining.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I protested. “We have to stay physically connected in order for this room to be visible? What the hell kind of weird is that?”