He’d presented me with a series of white candles and my goal was to light all of them at once through concentration. I was allowed to touch each of them, and after several hours of staring at them with a seriously empty stomach, I’d managed to light one by picturing the flame in my mind and holding the image.
Once I had mastered that, I could no longer touch the candle. Instead I had to create the fire just by looking at it. Blake waved his hand over the candles, and all the wicks sparked a tiny flame.
“Easy peasy,” he said, and then ran his hand over them again. The flames went out.
“How did you do that—putting them out? Can the Luxen do that?”
He smiled at me. “They can only control things related to some form of light, right? So moving, stopping things, and fire are all right up their alley. They can generate enough energy to create electricity and fuel a storm.”
I nodded, remembering how it had stormed that day Daemon had returned from the lake and Mr. Garrison had been waiting for him.
“And it’s like pulling atoms from the air around us, so yes, they can create wind. We’re just stronger than they are at it.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand how.”
He shrugged. “They have only one kind of DNA.” He paused, frowning. “If they have DNA. But let’s say they do for argument’s sake. We have two different sets of DNA in us. Like the best of both worlds.”
Not very scientific.
“Anyway, try it.” He prodded me with his knee.
I did exactly what I had done while holding the candle, but something went wrong.
My fingers lit up like the Fourth of July.
“Holy shit!” Blake jumped out of the way, pulling me along with him. Shock had set in as he dragged me into the kitchen and shoved my hands under a rush of cool water. It was the first time I’d heard Blake swear.
“Katy, I asked you to light the candle, not your damn fingers! It’s really not that hard. Jesus.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I watched my skin turn an ugly shade of pink and then red. It didn’t take long before the skin puckered and blistered.
“You may not be able to control fire or start it,” he commented, gently wrapping my fingers in a towel. “If you could, it shouldn’t have burned you. The fire would have been a part of you. But what that was? That was real honest-to-God fire.”
I frowned as my fingers throbbed. “Wait a sec. There’s a chance I can’t work with fire and you let me do that?”
“How else am I going to figure out your limitations?”
“What the hell!” I pulled my hand free, furious. “That’s not cool, Blake. What’s next? Trying to stop a moving vehicle by standing in front of it, but whoops, I can’t do that and now I’m dead?”
Blake rolled his eyes. “You should be able to do that. At least, I hope so.”
Disgusted with him, I went back to the candles. Needing to prove myself, I tried again and again. I couldn’t light the fire without touching the candles no matter how hard I tried.
The following morning I had to come up with a good excuse for my mom. It involved something stupid like placing my hand on a lit burner, but she believed me, and I even scored some weak pain pills.
Later that night, Blake explained that he’d never been able to heal anyone. When I asked when and why he’d been presented with the opportunity, he didn’t get a chance to answer. Warmth tingled over my neck and then a few seconds later there was a knock on my door.
I shot up. “Daemon.”
“Woo hoo.” Blake exuded so much false enthusiasm he could’ve been an actor.
Ignoring him, I rushed to the front door. “Hey,” I gasped, feeling hot and dizzy when I saw him. It never failed to amaze me how striking Daemon really was. “Are you helping tonight?”
Daemon’s gaze dropped to my bandaged fingers and nodded. “Yeah. Where’s Bilbo?”
“Blake,” I corrected. “He’s in the living room.”
He shut the door behind him. “About your hand…”
When Daemon had asked me about it in class earlier, I’d avoided answering, because I seriously doubted he would think how it happened was kosher. The last thing any of us needed was for him to kill Blake over my own ineptitude.
“I burned it on the stove last night.” I shrugged, looking down at the tips of his black boots peeking out from his denim jeans.
“That…is…”
I sighed. “Lame?”
“Yeah, really lame, Kat. Maybe you should stay away from the stove for a little while?”
He sidled past me and headed for the living room. I trailed behind, knowing I couldn’t leave him alone with Blake for any amount of time.
Blake gave him a halfhearted wave. “Nice of you to join us again.”
Grinning, Daemon plopped down next to Blake and spread his arm over the back of the couch, crowding the other boy. “I know you’ve missed me. It’s all right, I’m here.”
“Yeah,” Blake said, sounding real genuine.
We got started with moving stuff around for a little while and Daemon didn’t say much, not even a “Wow” or a “Congratulations,” but he watched me. Constantly.
“Moving stuff is just a parlor trick, really.” Blake’s arms were pinned to his chest.
“Wow.” Daemon cocked his head to the side. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
Blake ignored him. “The good news is you can do it on command now, but that doesn’t mean you have control. I hope it does, but we really don’t know.”