Magic Rises

couldn’t replicate it.
    “Julie recovered because of her magic,” I lied, keeping my voice gentle.
    “Please!”
    “I’m so sorry.” The words tasted like crushed glass in my mouth. There was nothing I could do.
    “You can’t!” Julie turned to me. “You can’t kill them. You don’t know. They might still come out of it.”
    No, they wouldn’t. I knew it, but I glanced at Doolittle anyway. He shook his head. If the girls had any chance of a recovery, they would’ve shown the signs by now.
    “They just need more time.” Meredith grasped onto Julie’s words like a drowning man grabbed at a straw. “Just more time.”
    “We will wait,” I said.
    “We would be only prolonging it,” Doolittle said quietly.
    “We will wait,” I repeated. It was the least we could do for her. “Sit with me, Meredith.”
    We sat together in the neighboring chairs.
    “How long?” Doolittle asked quietly.
    I glanced at Meredith. She was staring at her daughters. Tears ran down her face.
    “As long as it takes.”
    * * *
    I checked the clock on the wall. We had been in the room for over six hours. The girls showed no change. Occasionally one, then the other, would rage, pounding on the Plexiglas, snarling in mindless fury, and then they would drop to the floor, exhausted. Looking at them hurt.
    Doolittle had left for a couple of hours, but now he was back, sitting off by himself near the other wall, his face ashen. He hadn’t said a word.
    A few minutes ago Jennifer Hinton, the alpha of clan Wolf, had come into the room. She stood, leaning against the wall, cradling her stomach and the baby inside with her hands. Her face had a haunted look, and the anxiety in her eyes verged on panic. Approximately ten percent of werewolves went loup at birth.
    Meredith slipped off her chair. She sat on the floor by the Plexiglas and began to sing. Her voice shook.
    “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word . . .”
    Oh God.
    Jennifer clamped her hand over her mouth and fled out of the room.
    “Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird . . .”
    Margo stirred and crawled to her mother, dragging one twisted leg behind her. Maddie followed. They huddled together, the three of them, pressed against the Plexiglas. Meredith kept singing, desperate. Her lullaby was woven from years of love and hope, and all of it was now dying. My eyes teared.
    Julie rose and slipped out of the room.
    I listened to Meredith sing and wished I had more magic. Different magic. I wished I were more. From the time I could remember, my adoptive father, Voron, had honed me into a weapon. My earliest memory was of eating ice cream and holding my saber on my lap. I had learned dozens of martial arts styles; I fought in arenas and sand pits; I could walk into the wilderness and emerge months later, no worse for wear. I could control the undead, which I hid from everyone. I could mold my blood into a solid spike and use it as a weapon. I’d learned several power words, words in a language so primal, so potent, that they commanded the raw magic itself. One couldn’t just know them; you had to make them yours or die. I fought against them and made them my own. At the height of a magic tsunami, I had used one to force a demonic army to kneel before me.
    And none of it could help me now. All of my power, and I couldn’t help two scared girls and their mother crying her heart out. I could only destroy, and kill, and crush. I wished I could make this go away, just wave my arms, pay whatever price I had to pay, and make everything be okay. I wanted so desperately to make everything okay.
    Meredith had fallen silent.
    Julie returned, carrying a Snickers bar. She unwrapped it with shaking fingers, broke the candy in half, and dropped each piece through the slits.
    Maddie reached out. Her hand with four stubby nubs of fingers and a single four-inch claw speared the candy. She pulled it to her. Her jaws unhinged and she took one tiny bite of chocolate with crooked teeth. My heart was breaking.
    Margo lunged at the glass, snarling and crying. The half-a-foot-thick Plexiglas didn’t even shudder. She hurled herself against it again, and again, wailing. Each time her body hit the wall, Meredith’s shoulders jerked.
    The door opened. I saw the familiar muscular body and short blond hair. Curran.
    He must’ve been out of the Keep, because instead of his regular sweatpants, he wore jeans. When you looked at him, you got an overwhelming impression of strength. His broad