Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

Slowly it seeped in, a trace, a glimmer, a pool, growing in the gaps of his ribs, in the hollow of his gut. The power rose, and hope rose, too, swirling, eddying inside him, but not enough, not quite enough, like water blocked by a twig, a trickle when he needed a torrent.
     
    Sweat slicked his palms; beaded his forehead. He tried to force power, to wring it from his bones, to squeeze it from his heart, but like water, the magic eluded his grasp, reabsorbed into his tissues.
     
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    “You need someone else,” he had told her.
     
    And her voice replied, firm in its faith. “I don’t think so.”
     
    He groaned. He wanted, needed . . .
     
    More.
     
    MORE.
     
    Power burst through him like a wave through a flume, sluiced his senses, roared down his veins, erupted from his mouth, shot from his eyes, exploded from his fingertips. Everything, heart and brain and loins, was swept up and carried away like burning branches borne by a flood.
     
    He let the power take him where and how it would; until he was left, tumbled and empty, on the stones of the alley.
     
    The magic retreated, leaving him beached and gasping. He sprawled on his stomach, with rough green weeds poking between his fingers and broken glass glittering before his dazed eyes like stars.
     
    He heard a scrape, an indrawn breath, and turned his head.
     
    His sister, Lucy, stood in the shadow of the door well, her usually soft, overcast eyes blazing like the sea at noon.
     
    The ground tilted beneath his cheek.
     
    She blinked, and it was as if a shutter dropped over her face, transforming her brightness, making her once again a tall, rather ordinary young woman in a green Clippers T-shirt and a white kitchen apron.
     
    “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
     
    His hands were scraped raw. His lip was split. A headache drove spikes through his skull. But buoyed by the power that had surged through him—the wonder of it, the rightness of it— he barely noticed.
     
    “Did you see . . . Did you feel that?” he demanded.
     
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    She took a step back as he lunged to his feet, retreating farther into the shadows, into herself. Her lashes swept down like a curtain closing behind shutters.
     
    “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said.
     
    Like the world hadn’t tilted on its axis. Like nothing had happened at all.
     
    Like nothing happened. Fear raked him, more painful than the gravel embedded in his hands.
     
    He turned his head sharply and inspected the building.
     
    There. Relief shook him. The warden’s mark, etched deep in brick and mortar. The sign of power was scoured into the eastern corner of the foundation, where it would draw strength from the sea, the earth, and the rising sun.
     
    Even though he had placed it there himself, carved the connecting spirals with his need and his gift, the sight robbed him of breath.
     
    He looked back at his sister.
     
    She smiled uncertainly and turned to go.
     
    Driven by an urgency he did not understand, he called after her.
    “Lucy.”
     
    She wavered in the doorway, looking quiet and inoffensive and as if she would rather be anywhere but here.
     
    Regina’s words beat in his brain.
     
    “Do you . . .” He hesitated.
     
    Need me? What a lame-ass question. He had robbed her of their mother. What possible use could he be to her now?
     
    “Could I come stay with you awhile?”
     
    She blinked again, slowly. “Stay?”
     
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    “In the house,” he said, feeling like a fool.
     
    “It’s not my house. Or my decision.”
     
    “If you want me to ask . . . him, I’ll ask him. But would you mind?”
     
    “I wouldn’t mind. But I didn’t mean that. The decision’s up to you.”
    She smiled, an oddly aware, bitter little smile that lifted her face from ordinary to arresting. “It’s always been up to you.”
     
    *
     
    Regina frowned and applied antibiotic ointment from the kitchen first aid kit to Dylan’s scrapes. He sat on a stool at the dining room counter, out of the way of the prep continuing in the kitchen. She had to stand between his thighs to dot ointment on his cheek. He flinched as she brushed an abrasion near his eye.
     
    She winced in sympathy. “I don’t know how you did this,” she grumbled.
     
    He grinned at her foolishly, making her heart lurch. “Neither do I.”
     
    “You sound disgustingly pleased with yourself.”
     
    “I am.” He waited until his words caught her attention, until his gaze caught hers. “I warded the