Lupi 04 - Night Season

his feet…he looked down. The left one still ached a bit, but looked entirely normal, the parts properly situated.
    Who knew swallowing the elements could accelerate healing? He’d figure out how later. Time to check out the others.
    The gnome’s power hugged him like a dun-colored blanket, as if hiding what lay beneath. Gan’s magic was as in-your-face as she was—a shriek of orange punctuated by cerulean blue. A dozen shades of pink lapped over the tusked woman, glimmering into grape near the chakras. The clay-colored man’s magic matched his skin—earthy, with ribbons of green and lavender.
    Cullen checked the Edge party’s charms and nodded. They glowed with faint, pastel lines, just as he’d expected.
    Human magic was usually more translucent than that of those of the Blood, and more uniform in color. Power rose in a silvery fog from Ruben Brooks, sprinkled with sparks of black and violet. Rare colors, those. The silver was no surprise, of course, being the color usually associated with all types of clairvoyance, and Brooks was a strong precog. But the other colors…
    Speculate later.
    Cullen’s eyebrows rose when he saw McClosky from Commerce. Magic hugged the man’s ribs like wet moss, turgid and still—a Gift dammed up and denied.
    Lily was the exception to the Technicolor display. Her magic looked much as it always did—like ice, colorless but reflecting hints of the colors around her. Beside her, Cynna sat with her long legs folded, the protection spell a fine net overlaying her own magic. Which danced. Like a lively sunrise, it sparkled in the pale palette of Air. Except…
    Cullen stared. Over her stomach—her womb—a haze of lavender rested, cool and quiescent. He’d never seen magic coming from a developing fetus this early, but he’d never tried looking after in-blooding the elements. The energy was diffuse, the color pale, but it was separate. It didn’t dance with her other colors.
    Lavender, a soft purple. The color of those of the Blood.
    â€œCullen,” Cynna said, “you breathing?”
    No. He’d lost the balance. Flame licked at his fingers, roots twined up his calves, and his lungs sloshed with ocean, leaving him light-headed. Panic flickered at the edge of thought already dimming. He needed to move.
    No. Air. Fire’s first impulse was action, but it was breath he needed—to pull in air physically and locate the energy of Air inside him. It was there. He knew it was, however little he felt it. He dragged in a slow breath, belly-deep and ragged.
    The next one came more smoothly as the sparkle of Air returned to his blood and Earth subsided back into bone and sinew. By the third breath Water had seeped back into his soft tissue, clearing his lungs. He continued to heed his breath, settling into the balance once more, and walked to the chalked circle and the glyph he’d been directed to use as entry.
    Then Cullen reached for the ley line beneath his feet.
    He couldn’t see it. Too much earth lay between him and that wild current. He’d be working as blind as any other practitioner, reaching by guess and intention. But he felt it, oh, he did—keenly now, with the elements in him, a prickling beneath the skin and a drawing in his gut, power calling to power. His penis dipped like a dowsing rod.
    He pointed his athame at the ground. “Venio!”
    The word was a focus, a tool for his intention and will, which commanded the power to come. There were no real words of power—or rather, all words held power, but most practitioners preferred to use a language other than their everyday tongue. Still, it should be a language they knew. To match will with words, one must feel the words.
    Cullen spoke to power in Latin, and power answered. Quickly.
    It rolled up, up, through the earth faster than he’d expected. Faster than the thrice-damned gnome had warned him to expect, and stronger. The whole damned ley line answered his call.
    No time to kill the little worm. No time even to hurry—if he lost the balance now, he’d die. So he spoke slowly, even softly, pronouncing each word with the fullest force of intention, quite as if his life depended on it:
    â€œRes aqua repleo—
    Res terra repano—
    Res aero respiro—
    Res ignus retorqueo.
    Resero! Resero! Resero!” 1
    With the final repetition, Cullen touched the blade of his knife to the glyph the gnome had