Reagan jumped, launching at Penny with arms wide, sword held out to the side.

Emery braced himself, feeling the power stone pulse with energy, charging up the entire room. Magic came without him consciously pulling it, running in and around his fingers.

Reagan hit Penny from behind. She wrapped her arms around Penny’s body, putting the sword at an extremely dangerous angle. Before Emery could voice a protest or they could hit the ground, Reagan twisted in the air, landing so the sword wasn’t a problem.

“You’re going to poke someone’s gizzard out with that thing,” Penny said, struggling against Reagan’s hold.

“As long as it isn’t mine, I’m good.” Reagan released her hold long enough to pepper punches into Penny’s back.

Penny grunted, and the weave of magic she’d been making, even while being tackled to the ground, drifted into the sky before floating above them.

“What fecking spell is that?” Reagan said. She didn’t look up at it, but she clearly knew it was there.

How in the hell…

“Surprise!” Penny paused for a fraction of a second and received a couple more punches because of it. “Eventually. Surprise eventually.” She twisted and jabbed back with her elbow, connecting with Reagan’s sternum.

“I could kill you right now,” Reagan said, holding tighter.

“Fine. You win. Let me up.”

“No way. That thing you’re making is nasty. Send Emery away.”

“You send Emery away!”

Reagan glanced back at him. He started, realizing he’d drifted forward, ready to intervene without consciously thinking of it. Her shift in focus had Penny twisting again, trying to get an elbow into her ribs. “He’s two seconds from rescuing you,” Reagan said. “You send him away. He won’t listen to me.”

“No. You will take my surprise!”

“This is why men try to keep women dumb. They are much less dangerous to the power structure that way.” Reagan stared up vaguely at the cloud of magic drifting over them.

“What are you even talking about?”

Reagan didn’t answer. She rolled to the side, hopped up with a grace nearly equal to that of a vampire, and sprinted across the warehouse with a speed nearly equal to that of an elder.

“Are you non-human?” Emery asked.

“A little busy right now,” she replied.

She was right. The spell took after her like a shot, seemingly an intelligent entity.

“We need to get you on some nicer spells,” he heard Reagan mutter, glancing at him for a moment before digging into her fanny pack and pulling out a casing.

He could’ve sworn that casing had already been used.

She smashed it to the base of her sword, like she’d done before, and—again—he could see no magic transferred. More gibberish and then she was pivoting and running at the spell, sword up and snarl ready.

It split before she got to it, and he could more clearly see the weave. Wild and raw and fizzing with power, the fine strands creating it nearly sparkled with pent-up energy.

“So this is what I can look forward to, is it?” Reagan said, a knot of concentration between her brows. She swung her sword at one of the misshapen clouds, releasing her hand from the hilt of the sword as it cut through and fried the spell. The free hand swung behind her, and though he was at a bad angle, he could swear the same sort of frying effect happened to the second cloud without anything actually touching it.

She spun, slicing her magical sword—which, again, didn’t have any magic he could see—through the second cloud. She was working through them in short order.

Something was definitely off.

But Penny had already moved on to something else. Her fingers palpitated in a sort of rhythm. Eyes glistening and face smooth, she was clearly in her element. She’d found her balance rooted in nature.

Emery stepped closer, wanting to get inside her bubble of magic so he could better see and feel what she was concocting. So he could help and lend his touch. From the distance, he was missing components of what she was doing.

Penny shot the spell off as Reagan turned toward her.

“Clever,” Reagan muttered with a smile. “There are holes, though.” Her knees bent and her eyes glazed over for a moment, her concentration so intense that it seemed like she was blocking out the world around her. “Little pockets of deadness. Patch that up, and I’d need to resort to drastic measures to get out from under it.”

She didn’t bother with the casing this time. She charged, hacking and ripping at the spell with her sword and a clawed hand, fracturing the weave instead of unraveling, dissipating, or countering it. A black spot appeared on Reagan’s upper arm and she flinched away. Another on her forearm.

“Ouch.” She cut the reaching arms of the spell as Penny created yet another. By the time Reagan made it through the black-spot spell, Penny was ready with another.

Emery watched in fascination as the two engaged in a rare dance. Whatever magic Reagan had, it could counter Penny’s extremely inventive, tightly woven spells. And each time she did so, she described what Penny could have done better.

They were a team unlike any he’d ever seen.

Without any outward communication, they stopped nearly at the same time, both of them panting and fatigued.

Reagan nodded. “Good. You’re getting better. You didn’t take nearly as long to get in the zone. Was it him?” She pointed at Emery.

Penny bowed with exhaustion. “Yeah. He’s never guarded with his magic. I tapped into it and…it calmed me. Helped me find balance.”

“You embodied his magic, though. Like you do mine. I could tell because it was so much more interesting than your peaceful, lovey-dovey bullshit.”

“Wow.” Penny shook her head. “No wonder you love a vampire. You two have the same emotional landscape.”

“Yeah. A bit slow of you to just pick up on that now.”

Penny walked to Emery and, without a word, wrapped her arms around his middle and leaned into him. She wasn’t worried in the least about showing her affection or being rebuffed. She was completely open and honest. It comforted yet humbled him. “Sorry I’m sweaty,” she mumbled.

He wrapped his arms around her, supporting her. “I am going to steal your spells so hard, it’s not even funny.”

She laughed into his shirt. “I stole your magic, so I guess that’s only fair.”

“This stealing of the magic… That’s rare, Penny. It’s a gift, like my premonition. It must be.”

She shrugged. “Maybe everyone could do it if they’d open up more.”

He shook his head, not so sure.

“Ew. You guys are gross.” Reagan crouched and leaned her forearms on her thighs. “All right, Romeo. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

32

I stepped away with a groan as Emery accepted Reagan’s passive challenge. Passive, because Reagan didn’t just run at him and kick him in the face. She was clearly tired.

As I sagged into the chair in the corner, I smiled to myself. I’d made her winded a few times in the past, but this was maybe the first time I’d seen her this tired after a training session. She usually bounced back almost immediately.

It meant I was getting better.

“How does this work?” Emery asked, squaring up with Reagan, completely at ease.

The worst thing you could do was underestimate that woman. She’d shove it in your face and make you eat it. I nearly warned him, too, but didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

“You try to down me, and I try to down you,” Reagan said, holding her sword at her side with one hand and digging around in her fanny pack with the other.

“How intense do we get?”

“You can see the spells as they’re formed, right? Because you’re a natural?” She pulled out an intact casing and frowned at it. “Huh. I didn’t realize I had another one of these left. That might be fun.”

“I can, yes.”

She slipped the casing into her pocket before going back to the digging expedition. “And did you see what Penny was throwing at me?”

Emery shifted from one side to the other, something he did when he was unsure. “I work differently than Penny. I’ve had a lot more experience. We should probably establish some ground rules.”