Disrupted magic shamrock.., p.31
Disrupted Magic (Shamrock Disposal Book 1), page 31
Through these fractures, I sensed something unexpected. Not just presence, but permission. As if the true powers behind both Courts were allowing this connection, watching to see what would happen.
The Seelie energy flowed toward me like sunlight, warm and nourishing but blinding in its intensity. The Unseelie power came as a countercurrent of winter night—shocking, painful, but strangely clarifying.
I drew both in simultaneously, not fighting their opposing natures but accepting them as they were. For the first time, I didn’t try to control or limit what I was absorbing. I opened myself completely, becoming a conduit between realms.
The sensation was beyond anything I’d experienced—not pain exactly, but a pressure that filled every cell, every atom of my being. The boundary between the powers shifted and churned inside me, two primal forces that had been separated since the beginning of time now flowing through a single vessel.
What should have torn me apart instead transformed me. The fractures had created a unique opportunity—a moment when the normal rules of reality were suspended, when impossible things became possible. I felt as though I was being observed, tested, used as an experiment by powers far greater than Kaelus.
And somehow, I knew they were permitting this.
My teeth chattered even as sweat poured down my face. The opposing energies made me feel like I was being unraveled and rewoven simultaneously, my very atoms being sorted into summer and winter, life and death, warmth and cold.
And still I drew more in. I’d never attempted to morph so much before. Always I’d been careful, taking only what I needed, releasing the rest before it could harm me too much.
Now I held onto everything, becoming a vessel for powers never meant to coexist.
Too much. It was too much. The energies threatened to rip me in two. My vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in from the edges. My knees threatened to buckle as my muscles seized in protest.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hold on any longer, Lysienne stepped closer, her presence somehow steadying the chaos inside me.
Kaelus snarled, feeling his power being diverted. “Stop him!” he commanded his shadow entities. “The morph is interfering with the gate!”
The enhanced humans surged forward, but something unexpected happened. As I continued to draw power from both realms through the fractures, the energy itself formed a swirling barrier around Lysienne, Alison, and me—a sphere of frost-veined golden light.
Through the fractures, I sensed the distant presence of the true Unseelie power watching, allowing this to unfold. Not supporting Kaelus, but not stopping this process either. As if curious about the outcome.
“More,” Lysienne urged. “Draw as much as you can from the fractures.”
The sumarth network pulsed in response to my pull, its carefully arranged pattern beginning to destabilize. The Bloom Stone energy flowed through the enhanced humans, now redirected toward me instead of fighting against the Unseelie force.
“He’s collapsing the gate!” Kaelus raged, his form flickering as I drained power from his connection. “Stop him now!”
I pulled harder, trying to reach beyond the plaza to the networks spanning the city. Flashes of sensation hit me—the bitter cold of pure Unseelie magic, the dizzying warmth of Seelie power. It was too much. My vision blurred, muscles cramping as opposing forces warred within me.
“I can’t—” I gasped, knees buckling under the strain.
My vision was nearly black, but I could feel the power. Just a little more.
“You can,” Lysienne said, stepping closer. “But not alone.”
She placed her hands on my shoulders and immediately the chaos inside me settled. Not gone, but manageable.
“I can feel the power, but I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to,” she replied. “I am the Bridge.”
Understanding hit me. “No. There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t,” she said with perfect calm. “This was always my purpose. Bridges must sometimes be burned to stop an invasion.”
“Lysienne—”
“Listen to me,” she interrupted, her voice taking on a resonance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “I exist between Courts. Always apart, always alone. But today, that gives me purpose. Today, I can make a difference.”
Around us, the barrier flickered as the strain of maintaining it took its toll. The Seelie and Unseelie forces redoubled their efforts to break through, their attacks growing more desperate.
“When I’m gone,” Lysienne continued, “you must redirect the power back through what they’ve built. Not to destroy, but to balance. Neither Court can dominate.”
“I don’t know how,” I admitted, the surging energies slipping from my control.
She placed her hands on either side of my face. “Remember we exist in the music between Courts. In the breath between worlds.”
Her hair settled into a perfect blend of summer gold and winter blue as she leaned forward and pressed her forehead to mine.
Golden-blue light poured from her, flowing into me. A different power surged through me and connected with the energies I was channeling, linking them together. With her power came clarity. I saw the networks spanning the city as if from above—intricate patterns of gold and blue. I felt their connections, their dependencies, their vulnerabilities.
The pain I felt softened. The tearing was there, but now I felt it smoothing, as if the powers were no longer at war. There was still potency, but for a moment, it felt like I could hold it.
And if I did…
No.
A morph couldn’t hold power like this. I shouldn’t even have tried.
But I didn’t have a choice. And had Lysienne not helped, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to. Through the pain, I watched her form grow transparent, then dissolve into motes of light that swirled around me before dispersing across the fractures in reality.
“The Bridge returns to her purpose,” Alison whispered in awe.
Understanding flooded me. Lysienne wasn’t being destroyed—she was doing what Bridges were meant to do. As her essence spread across the fractures, they began to seal, the tears in reality mending under her touch.
Kaelus howled in rage as his gateway collapsed. “No! The connection was almost complete!”
I redirected the combined energies, sending them cascading back along the pathways opened by the sumarth devices and Bloom Stones, guided by what remained of Lysienne’s power. The energy flowed like water finding the lowest point, sealing cracks, reinforcing boundaries.
The fractured windows between realms began to close one by one, the glimpses of the Unseelie realm fading. With each closure, I felt the watching presence recede, its curiosity satisfied for now.
I released everything I’d been holding back. All the energy I’d carefully contained since discovering what I was, all the power I’d absorbed and hidden—I let it all go in one tremendous surge directed at healing the boundary between worlds.
The release knocked the wind out of me. Something changed inside me as the magic left—transforming me in ways I couldn’t yet understand. My body felt different. Stronger. Like I’d finally stopped fighting what I was meant to be.
The cobblestones beneath my feet cracked. The fountain’s spray resumed, droplets catching the first rays of dawn. Around the plaza, people began to stir, confused but unharmed.
My legs gave way and I sank to my knees. Alison was saying something, but her words seemed distant, muffled.
Lysienne was gone. Not hidden or relocated—truly gone. Maybe crossed over the veil between realms, or maybe truly sacrificed to create the balance that neither Court could overcome alone.
In the distance, I heard sirens. Agency vehicles approaching. I tried to stand, to move toward the sound, but my body refused to cooperate.
The world tilted sideways as I collapsed fully onto the cracked cobblestones. The last thing I saw before consciousness fled was the sky above City Plaza, where the rising sun painted the clouds in a perfect blend of gold and blue.
Not Seelie. Not Unseelie.
Balance.
CHAPTER 30
“The problem with paths is that they’re only visible after you’ve walked them. Before that, they’re just possibilities.” — Elizabeth Drexler’s journal
I woke to the steady beep of medical equipment and the antiseptic smell of an Agency facility. The ceiling above me was featureless white, institutional and impersonal. My body felt leaden, each limb distant and unresponsive, as if I’d been disconnected from my own nervous system.
But it was the strange sensation inside that truly alarmed me. My magical self felt different—altered somehow, as if reconfigured by the power I’d channeled. I still didn’t know what had changed, but considering how much energy I’d morphed, something had to have.
“Look who decided to rejoin the land of the living,” a familiar voice said from beside me.
I turned my head with effort to see Marcus slouched in a visitor’s chair, feet propped on the edge of my bed, tapping away at his phone. He looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and several days’ worth of stubble, but he grinned when he saw me looking at him.
“About time,” he said, setting his phone aside. “I was starting to think you were just faking to get out of paying your half of the takeout bill.”
I tried to speak but found my throat too dry. Marcus reached for a cup of water with a straw and held it to my lips. The cool liquid was almost painfully refreshing.
“How long?” I managed after several sips.
“Five days,” he replied, his casual tone not quite masking his concern. “You’ve been doing a pretty convincing impression of Sleeping Beauty, minus the whole beauty part.”
Five days. The thought should have horrified me, but I felt strangely detached. The magical energy inside me seemed to dampen emotional reactions, leaving only analytical awareness in their wake.
“What happened?” I asked.
Marcus’s expression hardened. “You don’t remember?”
“It’s all a blur after the facility started coming down.”
“The Agency team pulled you out of the plaza after the attack,” he said. “You were already unconscious when they found you—practically glowing with whatever crazy magic you absorbed.”
I stared at him, processing this information through the strange emotional numbness.
“Thank you,” I said simply. “For being here. For… being Marcus.”
He looked embarrassed but pleased. “Yeah, well. Someone’s got to keep your superpowered ass alive long enough to pay me back for all those burritos I’ve bought you.”
A silence fell between us, comfortable despite the gravity of what had happened. I noticed the room for the first time—a standard Agency medical suite, with monitoring equipment, reinforced walls, and subtle magical containment wards etched into the doorframes. Standard procedure for potentially unstable supernatural entities.
Which, I supposed, was what I had become.
“So,” Marcus said, breaking the silence, “the good news is you managed to stop Kaelus’s faction from creating their gateway. The sumarth network completely collapsed, and the fractures between realms have sealed.”
“And Lysienne?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Gone. Mercer says she returned to her natural state—maintaining the boundaries between worlds rather than existing in physical form.” Marcus shifted in his chair. “You did what needed to be done, Cal.”
I nodded, processing everything that had happened. “When I was channeling all that power, when the fractures were still open... I felt something watching. Something far more powerful than Kaelus or any of his agents. The Unseelie Queen herself.” A chill ran through me at the memory of that ancient, cold regard. “She saw me, Marcus. What I can do. What I am.”
“You think she’ll come after you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. She didn’t seem pleased with Kaelus’s plan, but...” I shook my head. “Having a morph who can channel both Court energies—that’s not something they’ll just forget about.”
“Well, they’ll have to go through the Agency to get to you now,” Marcus said. “And me. And your extremely terrifying father who’s been prowling the hallways looking ready to murder anyone who even thinks about hurting you.”
“My father’s here?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.
“Showed up about twelve hours after they brought you in,” Marcus confirmed. “Apparently, Mercer called him. He’s been dividing his time between hovering over you and arguing with the Agency doctors about your treatment.”
A knock at the door caused me to look up.
Despite having seen him just days ago, my father looked older somehow. The stress had deepened the lines around his eyes, and his normally perfect posture showed signs of fatigue. But his gaze remained sharp and assessing as it swept over me, cataloging my condition with the precision of someone who had spent a lifetime evaluating threats and injuries.
“Cal,” he said simply, moving to the foot of my bed.
“Dad.”
Marcus cleared his throat. “I’m going to grab some coffee. Shout if you need me to rescue you from awkward family bonding.” He clapped my father on the shoulder as he passed, earning a startled look that quickly softened into something like gratitude.
When we were alone, my father moved to the chair Marcus had vacated. He sat stiffly, hands resting on his knees, uncertainty written across his features.
“The doctors say you’ll make a full recovery,” he began. “Physically, at least.”
“But?”
“But they’re not equipped to evaluate the changes to your abilities.” He chose the word carefully, still unwilling to say morph aloud inside the Agency. “The power you channeled was unprecedented. Both Courts simultaneously, plus the Bridge’s energy.”
I was surprised Mercer had shared so many of the details with him.
“I remember,” I said, though in truth, the memory was fragmented—flashes of sensation and power rather than a coherent sequence of events. “Lysienne. She sacrificed herself.”
My father nodded. “Seasonal Bridges are rare. One appears perhaps once a century. For her to choose such an end…” He shook his head. “She must have seen something worth sacrificing for. Your mother believed your abilities weren’t a curse,” my father continued. “She thought they were an adaptation—a way to help create something new. She wrote that what you sacrifice defines us more than what we keep.” He met my eyes. “I think she would be proud of the choices you’ve made.”
Before I could question him further, the door opened again, admitting Mercer. She looked as composed as ever, though I noticed subtle signs of strain around her eyes.
“Mr. Drexler,” she addressed my father. “I need to debrief your son.”
My father stood, reluctance evident in every line of his body. “I’ll be back,” he promised me. “We have more to discuss.”
After he left, Mercer took his place, her expression giving nothing away.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, the formality of the question belied by the genuine concern in her eyes.
“Like I was hollowed out with an ice cream scoop and filled with liquid nitrogen,” I replied honestly.
Her lips quirked in what might have been a smile. “That is quite graphic.”
“What’s the situation?” I asked, not wanting to prolong the small talk.
Mercer accepted the change of subject with a nod. “We’ve received formal communication from the Unseelie Court—a rare occurrence in itself. It appears Archon Kaelus was operating without sanction. His attempt to create the gateway and use the Bridge was unsanctioned by the Unseelie Queen.”
“I felt that,” I said, remembering the cold presence watching through the fractures. “Her disapproval was... palpable.”
“Indeed. The message indicated that Kaelus has been recalled for judgment.” Mercer’s tone suggested this was significant. “In all my years with the Agency, I’ve never known the Unseelie Court to acknowledge a rogue faction, let alone punish one of their own archons.”
I remembered what I’d glimpsed through the fractures—the vast frozen landscape, the towering ice structures. I could almost see Kaelus being dragged before his Queen, frost forming over his form as her cold rage settled upon him. The Unseelie didn’t forgive failure or disloyalty, and their punishments were eternal and creative.
“What about the sumarth network?” I asked, pushing away the chilling mental image.
“Completely disabled—you made sure of that. The Bloom Stone network has been disrupted as well, though we’re still finding enhanced humans whose abilities are developing.” Mercer tilted her head slightly. “Your friend Emma has been working with them. Her experience has proved invaluable in helping others adapt to their abilities.”
“And Lysienne?” I asked, though I suspected I knew the answer.
“Gone. Or rather, returned to her natural state—maintaining the boundaries between realms rather than existing in physical form.” Mercer studied me. “She sacrificed her corporeal presence to help you seal the fractures.”
I nodded, processing everything. “And the Agency? What’s your next move regarding me?”
She looked at me a moment. “For now, I’m keeping your status limited to those who need to know. That includes myself and Agent O’Connor.”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
“For now. And seeing as how there might be others leveraging a power gap—”
“Others? Beyond the Courts?”
Her smile vanished entirely. “We’re seeing movement within older magic. Something is stirring. But for now, focus on recovery.”
I nodded, relieved that something good had come from the chaos. “And my status with the Agency?”
“Officially, you remain a consultant,” she said carefully. “Unofficially, you’re now classified as a strategic asset.”
