Page 49 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

His lips.

The way he looked at her.

She took her time.

She had no choice, even as dread and worry clawed at her to hurry.

Halfhearted magic was worse than no magic at all. It could do the opposite of what you were intending. Her mother’s words, her training, whispered through her mind.

Do it right the first time, or don’t do it at all.

So she went through every detail of the painstaking ritual.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

She unfurled her wings, spreading them wide, ignoring the pain of where she was broken.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

She moved her hands in the air around her in a dance only known to moonlight pixies, a series of flowing moves that both told a story but also drew out her magic.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

Next, she pulled the light from inside her into the palms of her hands, the warmth of her power protecting her from the cold of the light.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

She physically pushed the light into Asher’s wound, a dark mark her magical eyes could sense even with her physical eyes closed.

The darkness resisted.

Stuffing down panic, she pushed harder, breathing through her anxiety, holding onto the calm, onto the magic, with everything she had.

Then the shadows gave way, just a little, and the light pushed inside.

“Fuck me,” Ladon murmured. “You seeing this?”

Gwen didn’t look.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

She pushed even more light into Asher’s body. The darkness gave a little easier this time, but too much of it was still inside him. The stain was still there.

More light.

This time, when she pushed, he twitched. She saw it behind her eyelids in the way the light and shadows sort of shimmied.

Is it working? Or am I killing him?

Maybe she was filling him with competing forces that warred with each other and tore his already sickening body apart.

No. The shadows will kill him for sure if I don’t do this, she reassured herself.

Focus. Gather. Breathe.

More light.

He grunted this time.