Ira

A spell.

That was Ajak's solution to my sleeping problem, and it terrified me. Considering the last one I'd run into; I wasn't all that excited to be stuck in another, but it wasn't like he could do anything worse to me than what the dreams already did. Still, I was beyond nervous when I followed him deeper into the house and to a lavish bedroom that clearly sat unused. Laid out on the bed, I had to try not to give in to the panic as I felt unconsciousness creeping closer.

"It'll feel like you're a ghost "Ajak warned me. "Completely painless but fully aware."

And he'd been right.

After drawing a pentagram on my forehead with a dark grey paste and whispering words I didn't understand, I felt the pull of unconsciousness. Then I was floating above myself watching as he performed the same ritual on an ancient hourglass, it's surface so dirty the sand inside was barely visible and its worn-down base cracked. For a heart-stopping moment, I was back in Uriel's trap but unlike his cage, Ajax's let me see and its creator knew I could hear him.

"It will only last for eight hours, thirty-two minutes, and seven seconds," Ajak reassured me, "But it will feel longer."

his words held a strange echo as he turned the hourglass over carefully and brushed one last pentagram on the other side. The hiss of sand falling slowed to a steady prolonged ts ... ts ... ts as the sound of each grain hitting the bottom echoed through me. I had no way to speak, so I could only hover as he patted my shoulder and left me to rest.

Ts...

Ts...

Ts...

It felt like hours had passed when Shayla appeared, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. She hesitated in the doorway, a stack of folded clothes in her hands. Approaching slowly to set them on the edge of the bed, she smoothed out the wrinkles on top. There was something reverent in her touch and she swallowed audibly before she spoke.

"These should fit you," she said into the air, her voice softer than I'd heard up to this point "If they don't, we'll find some that do."

Then she slipped out just as quietly as she'd come, leaving me to the remaining silence.

Ts...

Ts...

Ts...

It was odd watching myself sleep.

The oddest part of it was realizing how much I'd changed. Emma had helped me re-bleach my hair the day before the ball but now it had grown out nearly a full three inches in the last day or two. And I'd aged without knowing it, the plans of my face starting to look more like my tired father than my once youthful mother. I still had her features though and I wondered if seeing them would ever stop hurting; the Native-American features of her grandfather's family tempered by her grandmother's Italian. I'd always been so proud to inherit her beauty as a kid, but now it just made me think of the glamours Ajak spoke of.

Something pretty to hide the ugliness underneath.

And the way I lay so still, it didn't seem natural. It wasn't, I supposed. But was I like this when I dreamt, I wondered as the moonlight crept across the room? I was tempted to put a hand on my chest just to see if I was breathing but as I was now, no hands meant I couldn't check for signs of life. Unable to move or explore to fill the time, I took in the room instead.

Everything about it was ridiculously big. The four-poster bed alone could have comfortably fit three full-grown adults but most of it was blurred as if my earlier lack of attention brushed such details into obscurity. That left me with nothing to do but memorize the patterns on the blanket as I waited, the sand in the hourglass seeming to fall agonizingly slow.

Ts...

Ts...

Ts...

But it was worth it.

I would take this silent purgatory over the dreams any day. Even in the last minutes, when I was sure to time stood still and the last grain of sand seemed to hover for an eternity, I would still choose this.

When finally, that last grain hit the bottom, I was jerked back into my body. Sucking in a breath so deep I could feel my ribs crack, I let it out with a shudder. Pins and needles prickled over my whole body and the clay on my forehead felt hot. Shaking off the stiffness in my limbs, I sat up and wiped at the stuff. It came off as an ashy powder that made me sneeze. Fully awake after that, I slid off the bed and took stock of my senses. The pinpricks of pain running along my nerves eased gradually, letting me feel the other aches still lingering from the day before. I had a few bruises that would hurt for a while but at least I was alive.

I am Ira, and I am awake I reminded myself.

After dressing in the clothes Shayla left, I followed the sound of voices down a long hall, through what looked like a living room, to the dining area, and located the others in the kitchen. Uriel broke away from Shayla when I walked in and it took me a moment to absorb the scene in front of me.

On the other side of the counter, Nina was slathering very yellow butter on pancakes. She looked no less for wear, much to my relief. The joy she directed at me made something easy inside me. I was glad Nin was alright but Dark tendrils of Uriel's aura curled around her in a protective cloud. Even Shayla's bold colors were dimmed by the neon anger he emitted. Violence barely leashed behind his mask of indifference, it swelled to fill the room, and when I finally looked at him, that wild dangerous thing stared back.

I didn't want to find out what would happen if he let it out, so when Shayla told me where to find Ajak I went; more afraid of what Uriel would do if I didn't, than anything Ajak might have waiting for me.

Inside the greenhouse, the air, thick and warm, immediately covered my skin in a light sheen of sweat. My senses were assaulted by the heady smells and bright colors of the plants lining the walkways. Heavy undertones of rich earth balanced out the sickly sweetness of the flora that seemed to glow with its own aura, while the flowers themselves were strange and unfamiliar. Dark purplish roses with white speckles scattered across their delicate petals grew alongside florescent ferns. And among them, half-hidden by sparse foliage, remnants poked through. A massive Flytrap followed me as I passed by, veins of amber running up its stem. Soft gravel crunching beneath my bare feet as I walked, I noticed the circles around each plant. Made of varying stones and crystals, they were painted with strange symbols and pulsed with an inner light.

Spells the Knowing whispered, making me shudder at the thought as I slipped by them.

The Greenhouse itself was a long L-shape that hugged the corner of the house. Wide enough to have a low bed between two narrow walkways for the width of the west side, it met the wider path down the middle of its northern length with three creaking wooden steps. It was at the bottom of those steps that I found Ajak. Kneeling in the dirt, he was tending to a blooming bush nestled in a raised portion of a garden bed, built up by a soft pink stone. He wore clothes much the same as yesterday's but today his sleeves were rolled up revealing the gleaming band around his upper arm, a twin to one Shayla wore. His hands, lacking the rings and bangles they'd held before, were dirty from his efforts and the dark soil was nearly the same shade as his skin. He reminded me of the earth spirits I'd read of once with his thick locks tied up at the nape of his neck, their beads, and rings clicking softly as he worked.

I stopped at the top of the stairs unsure if I was meant to wait or join him.

"Take that vine over there will you." I started at his words "just put him up on the trellis before he gets ahold of your leg."

Glancing down, I saw there was in fact a vine creeping closer, stretching across the stairway to brush at my pant leg. Long, claw-like, thorns grew along its stalk, along with shimmering bell-shaped blooms with spiked edges and wide ovate leaves, their webbed surface so thin I could see right through them. Its roots were curled around the forementioned trellis and when I bent to pick it up, fragile tendrils wrapped around my fingers.

Startled I tried to yank away, but Ajak grabbed my wrist with a stilling hand.

"Don't hurt it," he said firmly, slowly releasing me. "He just wanted to say hello."

"He?"

"It only pollinates, so yes, technically he." He gave a me self-deprecating grin. "But forgive if I refer it with more familiarity than is scientific."

"What is it?" I asked as it crawled farther up my arm.

"I don't know," Ajak said simply, guiding me closer to the trellis. "It doesn't have a name. At least, not anymore."

Trying to stay calm as the vine wrapped tighter, I tugged at it, careful to avoid the thorns. It released its hold, only to reach for my other hand and Ajak chuckled. Taking it before it could grab me again, he draped the vine over its trellis. Glad to be free of the thing I rubbed at my arms. But despite my apprehension, curiosity made me ask "where did it come from?"

"Someone found it under their bed, growing right through their floor." He told me with amusement "I barely got there in time to save It."

"Why would you want to save it?" I frowned at his explanation. Remnants were mostly a nuisance if not dangerous. Most people just got rid of them if they could, but my question made Ajak's amusement slip away.

"Because it is a rare and precious thing," he murmured "A new beginning for its kind."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"After the awakening, it wasn't just the mage who returned. These," he waved a hand to the rest of the greenhouse "are only a few of the species that died out along with them. But the Awakening brought life back to what remained of their roots and seeds." He pressed a thumb into one of the wicked-looking thorns of the vine, drawing blood to smear it across a leaf making the edges curl in around the offering, funneling it toward the stem of the plant. There was something sad in Ajak's voice when he sighed "It's a shame people are still afraid of them. Even after nearly an entire century, nobody wants to believe they are just as a part of nature as we are."

"I thought the mage wasn't natural," I said, confused now.

"They are corrupt, but they belong here too." He straightened, something like resignation in his voice "I believe that is why they've returned, the plants that are. If they had kept to the old ways, the new mage could co-exist with muutes without having to feed off them by using these instead"

"How?" I wondered.

"Sustain them and they sustain you. That is the way of old." He gestured to the new flowers blooming along the vine. "The nature of our gifts is more than just an exchange of power and they are made great or terrible by what we chose to do with them. Give and you will receive, Take and you will be consumed." He looked me in the eye then, his solemnity a heavy wight between us. "That is your first and most important lesson."

"Noted," I said, brushing the lingering sense of creeping things off my arms. "But I don't remember choosing to do anything with my gift."

"Because you lack control, but that is something we can easily fix. Come" he gestured for me to follow him as he slipped through the door beneath the trellis' arch "we will need the circle for this lesson" I hesitated, remembering the panic of yesterday and he raised a brow at me. "Unless you'd like to continue as you are?"

Shaking my head, I followed him outside where we found Nina crouching by the greenhouse wall. She looked up at us and waved, a little grin on her delighted face as we passed by. Ajak returned the gesture but didn't stop. Leading me once more across the yard he ducked beneath the limbs of a towering pine. I stopped before entering the clearing to perfect to be natural.

I shivered, remembering the last time I'd been in that circle.

"Don't be afraid. It cannot harm you." He stepped past the trees as if to prove his words and held out a hand "Will you trust me?"

Shaking my head, I stepped back. "I can't.

He sighed. "You see these trees? I planted them with my own two hands. I put them here to be the cornerstones of a spell meant to contain whoever is inside. It draws on your emotions and energy but only to amplify its purpose so it will never be weaker than the one it holds. while self-sustaining, it is fed only by you, so it can never be stronger than you either." He said it so succinctly. Like a professor giving a lecture. "If you want to deconstruct it, you can. But if you have the focus and control to dismantle it, you have no reason to do so.

"What if..." I had to swallow back the bile in my throat. "What if I get trapped again?"

"Have a little faith in yourself." He said gently. "You got yourself out once, you can do it again."

"Hard to do that when I barely managed it the first time."

"Then I will help you as I did before."

I studied him, unsure if I could trust this person who made friends with blood-thirsty plants. But just as before honesty wove through his aura, soft and unencumbered by his muted colors. Reminding myself that he had not harmed me with his spells last night, I let my feet carry me over the invisible line between us.

As soon as I step past, it shimmered to life and breathing became difficult as I felt the walls forming around me.

"You are not a prisoner." Ajak reminded me.

A strangled laugh burst from my mouth, as I tried and failed not to focus on the spell humming through the air. "Really? 'cuz it kind of feels like it."

He grimaced apologetically. "That would be Uri's impressions I'm afraid. I'm sorry can't change them for you but it'll fade once you create your own."

"His impressions?"

"I might be its maker, but the spell holds on to the impressions of those who feed into it and it took a long time for him to get out the first time."

"How long is 'a long time'?" I asked, not entirely sure I wanted the answer.

Ajak pursed his lips in visible reluctance but told me "Three months."

Dread rolled in my belly.

I'd seen the wild thing inside Uriel and remembered all too clearly what it was like to be trapped in here. To have something so primitive and three months of nothing but the same thirty feet of space would drive anyone mad if they weren't already insane.

Trying to distract myself from that thought I asked, "Is that why he hates you?"

"No," There was such naked grief on Ajak's face, I almost felt embarrassed to have seen it. "What I did was unforgivable." the colors around him dimmed to a heavy gray but he cleared his throat and continued with less gravity. "This was only meant to protect others from unintentional harm. He needed it just as much as you do now."

"I'm not sure I'd put it that way. I haven't started killing people, yet after all."

I meant it to be snarky, but Ajak was completely serious as he said softly "No, not yet, but a mage's awakening destroys the natural barriers of the mind. And with the amount of power you have, that's a death sentence for muutes." Shifting uncomfortably, I watched him find the center of the circle and settle cross-legged on the ground. "I can teach you how to rebuild them, but you will have to do all work yourself."

"And what sort of work is that?" I asked.

Waving me over, he began his instruction.

"First, you must start creating a solid foundation."