***

  [Lorelei]

  The bad news was that while we’d been immersed in our studies, things in the world weren’t all sunshine and roses: two more pentagram sites had been discovered with murdered victims, with the same large anti-magic zones.

  None of these pentagrams had been anticipated in time to prevent their appearance. It still wasn’t clear who exactly was behind this or what the logic of the spread was. Accordingly, predicting the location of the next pentagram wasn’t working out. Their appearance seemed random, though the inquisitors were trying to find some pattern — there surely was one — but so far the search had been unsuccessful.

  Ilforte called Calypso and me to one such pentagram.

  “Teleport to the Graven-Hawk district immediately with Lorelei,” his voice came from Calypso’s communicator bracelet as we were training together on the field.

  “We have a new anti-magic zone here, very fresh, we need to track down the epicenter.”

  “Why are you calling us?” Calypso asked, already walking toward the Armarillis teleportation gates. I could barely keep up with him.

  “There are plenty of professionals in the Inquisition for this kind of thing.”

  “The anti-magic zone is very fresh. I happened to be right nearby when it appeared I was the first to notice it. But I can’t track any dark creatures or the epicenter of the zone myself. I have a rough idea, but we need to find the pentagram as quickly as possible. I’ve called everyone, but it’ll take several minutes before our colleagues contact Elza, who’s relaxing somewhere without her communicator bracelet right now. And I trust you two more than the inquisitors I’m expecting any minute,” Ilforte sighed and ended the connection.

  We teleported immediately and, together with Ilforte who met us, headed toward the presumed center where Calypso and I also sensed a concentration of dark energy.

  “I feel like a blind kitten being completely unable to use magic,” the Mentor grumbled as we entered the suspected house.

  “This time the scale of panic is epic. We couldn’t hide the incident because the anti-magic zone covered active residential areas. The city is in a panic. A large Inquisition patrol is currently busy calming passersby and local residents and dealing with some urgent matters. For example, two streets down, at the corner of Hawkins and Vernavo, a building that was held up entirely by magic collapsed. Magic stops working, everything comes crashing down in an instant… Several people ended up under the rubble. And a flying carriage crashed too. It flew full speed into the anti-magic zone and plummeted. Many victims. No deaths so far, but you can understand the level of panic…”

  Calypso and I operated the same as last time, except we no longer needed to hold hands, so we found the hidden entrance to the basement very quickly.

  The Mentor appreciated this.

  “You no longer need physical contact to merge your auras?” he immediately understood, watching our actions.

  “And you don’t even need to take off your gloves for this, Lora? Hmm, your aura has stabilized significantly… Excellent work, you two. Keep it up.”

  I couldn’t help but smile smugly. The Mentor was never stingy with praise in general, but right now it especially felt like he meant it.

  This time no one wasted time searching for and lighting candles — Ilforte now always carried stones with him that glowed in the dark regardless of magic’s effect on them. It was with these blue glowing stones that Ilforte lit our way down the massive staircase to the basement.

  “Maybe we should just fill all the basements with acid and concrete?” Calypso grumbled as we descended.

  “They only ever find victims in them…”

  “Every other house has a basement like this. Are you suggesting we pour acid over all of Forland and its territories?” Ilforte smirked.

  “This type of construction was popular at one time. They go down to basements so magical bursts aren’t noticed too early. It's easier to hide them in basements. But you can hide them elsewhere if there’s no basement, that’s not the key factor. So, unfortunately, we can’t just eliminate all basements. ” “Unfortunately, that’s not really an important thing. I can’t identify any significant pattern yet all the discovered pentagrams have no connections between them that could at least help us try to predict the location of the next one…”

  “We need to narrow down the search… Have you looked at the pentagram movement on a map?”

  “Of course. But with three points you can’t determine the trajectory. With four it’ll be clearer, but as you understand, we’d really rather not wait for another one to appear,” Ilforte sighed.

  In the basement was the pentagram I was already familiar with, and in its center lay an unfortunate victim — this time a middle-aged man with a neat beard. We couldn’t find anything else in the basement, no traces of whoever was behind this mess, even though the pentagram was clearly fresh — the blood hadn’t even dried yet. But unfortunately, the traces had either been expertly cleaned up or Calypso and I lacked the necessary knowledge… Ilforte had clearly hoped we’d be able to pick something up, and he couldn’t hold back a disappointed sigh.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  There was only one significant difference.

  “Wait, he’s still alive,” I said.

  Ilforte looked doubtfully at the victim lying in the center of the pentagram.

  “Really? I sense him as dead.”

  “So do I,” Calypso said.

  “But there’s still magic flickering in him. I can feel his magical Spark beating!” I said with certainty.

  I pointed at the corners of the pentagram.

  “See? The pentagram isn’t fully completed. And the previous pentagrams had their power points marked with the victim’s internal organs, right? There’s none of that here, although judging by the incision in the man’s side, they were definitely planning to. But they didn’t have time. Your aura probably scared off some necromancer, and they fled before finishing what they started. Although the energy burst during the ritual was still enough to activate the pentagram.”

  I shifted from foot to foot uncertainly and blurted out:

  “Mentor… May I try to rekindle his magical Spark?”

  “Hmm… You want to try to revive the victim?”

  “I can’t hurt him any worse than he already is,” I said with a bitter smirk.

  “I’m not sure it’s safe to touch the pentagram victim right now,” Ilforte said thoughtfully.

  “Lora can,” came a voice from the stairway.

  “The pentagram’s dark magic won’t harm her.”

  It was my mom, arriving with other inquisitors judging by the voices in the house’s living room. Though Elza hissed at the inquisitors, shooing them away, so only she came down to the basement.

  Today Elza was dressed in a beautiful floor-length blue sequined gown. I don’t know what she’d been doing before she was pulled away to examine the pentagram, but in that outfit and in this dirty basement, Elza looked completely out of place, of course.

  “If you can feel the magical Spark beating, try to rekindle it,” she said, addressing me.

  “I don’t feel anything either, but I don’t have a healer’s gift, so this might be purely your heightened perception. Don’t ignore it.”

  I nodded nervously, settling onto my knees. Thanks to Calypso, I’d of course stopped recoiling from people and being hysterical about touching them, but I still felt strong anxiety when I took off my gloves and placed my bare palms on the man’s chest.

  I knew exactly what to do — my magical gift guided me, and I knew the technique perfectly. Right now I felt the pulse of the magical Spark especially keenly — for me it was like a heartbeat that I listened to carefully. Listened to, and quickly wove my own energy into its rhythm, poured my magic into him — magic that had been bored without work and was now joyfully rushing ‘to the job.’

  I didn’t even need any special spells for this, because my magical gift allowed me to heal someone’s Spark with just a touch, without any complications. My magic worked on its own here, with the right concentration from me. And a simple little tune that I hummed to myself helped me concentrate. For me, this song worked like the necessary spell.

  I acted precisely and very fast — every second counted.

  Short lightning bolts crackled in my hair, flowing down my arms and into the solar plexus of the pentagram victim, precisely affecting it, filling it with the necessary energy.

  Purple-blue flashes of magic swirled around me, brightly illuminating the dark basement and the faces of the curious onlookers who stood frozen nearby, tensely waiting to see if I could pull off this ‘trick.’

  “Such beautiful magic,” I heard Calypso’s admiring whisper.

  I have to say, his admiration — completely sincere, I could feel it — somehow unexpectedly gave me strength for the final push. And I sang the last lines of the song with a smile on my face, after which the man’s body seemed to flash from within with bright blue light for a moment — and then everything went out, and the basement was dark again.

  I inhaled deeply and moved my trembling hands to my heart. I’d done everything technically correct, but that didn’t mean it had actually worked. I was terrified to learn I’d failed, so I held my breath, listening to the man’s breathing…

  It felt like an eternity of waiting… and then the heart under my palm clearly began to beat.

  “He’s breathing… He’s breathing!” I said in the silence that had fallen, not believing it myself.

  “He’s alive! I did it!”

  Holy shit, I did it, I did it!!

  Wild elation mixed with severe weakness, because the spell to restore the magical Spark had drained a huge amount of my strength. Just a minute ago I’d been energetic and full of strength — and now I sat with my head bowed and my arms hanging limply, as if a whole day of exhausting training had been crammed into one minute of my life.

  But I was still smiling, because I was happy to finally use my magical gift as intended and see that I hadn’t taken someone’s life with my deadly touch. On the contrary, I’d breathed life back into what seemed like a hopeless case.

  Ordinary healers and even necromancers like my mom couldn’t restore such a magical Spark because they simply couldn’t sense it anymore — for them it had simply gone out forever, and if it’s completely gone out, there’s nothing left to heal.

  But because of my magical gift, I can sense the faintest movement of energy in a mage, even if they’ve technically died, but the resilient magic hasn’t completely left their body yet, there’s still the thinnest thread you can pull and draw back out. That’s exactly what I’d just done. I did it, I did it!!

  “But he needs a healer urgently now,” I said, my tongue barely moving.

  “I can’t help him any further…”

  “You need a healer urgently too,” Ilforte chuckled, rushing over, his eyes shining with delight.

  “Good job, Lora,” Mom hugged me from behind.

  “I never doubted you. I’ll patch this fellow up, and then Ilforte and I will continue.”

  Elza turned to Calypso and said:

  “Take Lora outside, she needs fresh air right away there’s too much concentrated darkness here.”

  Calypso nodded silently, helping me stand and climb the stairs. He took my hand without gloves out of habit, and I saw Elza and Ilforte flinch in horror toward our hands, but then they froze in confusion, seeing that my touch wasn’t harming Calypso at all. We’d never demonstrated this little detail to anyone before, so we clearly made quite an impression with this seemingly simple gesture. But I was in no state to appreciate this silent scene right now.