"Yikes. I bet. So when you did it, was there a lot of screaming and pointing? That's what happened to me."
He laughed. "Yeah, she was nowhere near as happy to be healed as I'd thought she'd be."
We were sitting so close that our hips touched. He smel ed nice, like freshly cut grass and sunshine. I wondered if he'd been outside already this morning, or if that's just the way Cal always smel ed.
I was about to ask him more about this mysterious "she"with the broken leg, but he changed the subject. "So you're learning to control your powers,"he said, studying me with those clear hazel eyes. "How's it working out?"
"Great,"I answered, before I remembered that Cal thought I'd just been grievously injured during one of those lessons. "I mean, it's real y hard,"I amended, "but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Sure beats the idea of going through the Removal."
"Does that mean the Removal is out?"
I ran my finger around the paisley pattern on the couch. "I think so, yeah,"I replied, leaning back against the cushions. The cut on my palm may have healed up, but I stil felt pretty wiped out.
"I'm glad,"he said quietly. The space between us suddenly seemed smal er, and when he covered my hand with his, it was al I could do not to jump.
It took me a minute to realize that he was just using more magic on me. I could feel the weariness running out of me as silver sparks ran along my arm.
"Better?"The sparks faded, but Cal didn't take his hand off mine.
"Much."Of course, al that tiredness had now been replaced by a weird jitteriness that had me shoving the blanket off my legs and standing up.
"What does it feel like, doing healing magic?"I asked, moving away to stand near one of the big windows. The early morning sunlight sparkled on the dew-covered grass.
"What do you mean?"
Rubbing my hands up and down my arms like I was cold, I shrugged. "It seems like it would be super draining, closing wounds and bringing people back from near death."
"It's actual y kind of the opposite,"he said, getting up off the couch. "It's like...touching electricity, I guess. You're handling someone's life energy, so it's intense, yeah, but there's like this charge from it."
"I'm not sure how I feel about you 'handling my life energy,'Cal."
He grinned, and I was taken aback by how different it made him look. Cal spent so much time being stoic and solemn that it was easy to forget he even had teeth. "I'l buy you dinner first next time, I promise."
Okay, the grin was one thing, but that had definitely been flirting. Then, like I wasn't thrown enough, Cal leaned down and picked up a potted African violet on the low table next to the sofa and brought it over to me. For a second, I wondered if this was his social y awkward way of trying to give me flowers, but he said, "Any Prodigium can do it, real y. Not on the same level I can, but stil . You just have to be patient."He pushed the plant toward me, and I noticed a few brown spots on its velvety petals. "Wanna try?"
I looked at the droopy violet and snorted. "Thanks, but that poor little flower looks like it's suffered enough."Wiggling my fingers, I added, "I'm way better at the blowing-stuff-up part of magic. Healing is probably beyond me."Sure, I'd managed to make water pink and change Nick's clothes yesterday, but healing seemed a lot harder than that. Not to mention that my mind was stil on that jagged piece of paper, and how Dad had covered up our stealing the grimoire.
Cal nudged my arm with the pot. "You said you were working on control ing your powers. No magic requires more control than healing. Try."
I thought about protesting that I was too worn out from the spel with Dad earlier, but the truth was, thanks to Cal's magic, I felt better than I had in days.
And I'm pretty sure he knew it.
I took the terra-cotta pot. "What exactly do I do?"
Cal curled his fingers around mine and raised my left hand to the brownish flower. There was a cal us on his thumb that should have been irritating against my skin.
"In a lot of ways, healing is like any other magic. You concentrate on what you want to change, and you make it happen."
"Or, in my case, explode."
Cal just shook his head and said, "But when you're healing something living, you have to take it into account, too."
"And I do that how?"
Cal's fingers tightened on mine, and my heart thumped in response. The library felt very quiet and very stil around us. "You'l feel it."
I swal owed, which was hard to do what with my mouth suddenly drying out. "Okay."
I closed my eyes and felt my magic traveling up from the bottoms of my feet. So far, so good. I thought about those brown spots on the petals, al the while keeping Mom's face firmly lodged in my brain. Heal, I thought, feeling too self-conscious to actual y say the word out loud. The flower stirred under my hand, but when I cracked my eyelids, it looked as brown as ever.
I closed my eyes and took more of those deep breaths Dad was so fond of, thinking that it was no wonder Prodigium were always getting their asses handed to them by humans. I mean, every time I had to do an intense spel , there was al this focusing, and relaxing, and picturing, and breathing.... It wasn't exactly the most effective battle strategy against something like The Eye.
I should've known better than to think about The Eye, though. As soon as the name popped into my head, my control shattered.
And so did the terra-cotta pot.
Black soil rained down on my feet, and the purple flower drooped even further. I could have sworn it actual y bobbed accusingly at me.