Chương 55: Act 2, Chapter 9: The Author

Day in the story: 8th December (Monday) Of course, the next day Jason hardly remembered anything from yesterday. Still, he knew we'd talked about some kind of monsters and he accepted my eye-card as a lucky charm I'd supposedly made for him.

"It will watch over you," I told him, selling the story and asked him to slip it into the side pocket of his backpack, the mesh pocket, translucent enough that I could keep tabs on him the entire day. Peter, as instructed, stayed close to him the whole time. I was about to take my break and grab something to eat at the Dining Hall when Dam called, so I picked up.

"What's up, big guy?"

"Alexa, I couldn't sleep because of the mistake I made assessing the situation," Dam began.

"I reached out to a friend still working with the Hexblades, he's certain, one hundred percent sure, that what you saw must have been an Unreflected."

"I know," I interrupted.

"…they're shadows that—" he continued, then paused.

"Wait, you know?"

"Yes, a Seer told me about them. Now is the part where you reassure me I shouldn't worry." Dam sighed.

"Hexblades got a call after police officers shot one of those things downtown yesterday morning. They spun some wild story about a woman punching the creature, probably a mage nearby and lucky for the cops, it worked."

"Very lucky," I said, giggling to myself.

"So they deployed a few units to hunt them down," Dam went on.

"My friend called me this morning, they killed ten of them overnight. It was the biggest outbreak he's seen in years. Still, some people went missing, so they're planning to look for their nests. Apparently, they drag their victims there to feed on their reflections."

"Why? For food?"

"No," Dam said, voice grave.

"Marek told me they do it to awaken a scarier version of themselves, a Shattered. A fully sentient, more humanlike Unreflected."

"So they got all of the ones that showed up? Those ten?"

"The Oracle was confident," he replied.

"But those are still shadows and whatever cast them, can recast them later. So once they target a person, they might come back for them if what makes the person uneven remains."

"Great. Just great. Thanks for the good news, though."

"I'm sorry again for being so sure when I was wrong. I'll do better."

"No, Dam, you're already great," I reassured him.

"And sorry for canceling our morning session."

"I understand" he said, then brightened.

"Oh, I have other good news, Nickolas was called by our soul core. He's in France right now as we speak."

"He's advancing?" I grinned.

"Is it customary to bring gifts or something?" Dam laughed.

"No, no gifts needed." We wrapped up the conversation and afterward I got curious about my own progress, so I called Anansi. [You are at 53%. You need 47% more essence of Authority to initiate growth.] I'd call that a great job, the result of constant training and my diligent work at the University. I still loved art above all else and tried to paint whenever I had the chance. The fact that I had so many things constantly infused with my Authority probably helped, too. Wait a second, did it?

I tested it with a steel card. Once infused with the initial Authority, the link that connected me to the card didn't seem to channel anything more. But… was that true for everything? I decided to skip my meal and teleported straight to my Domain. I picked up one of my cards again and decided to try something different. I asked my Domain to reshape part of the wall, forming a stable concrete shelf. I placed the card there and commanded it to become fire.

My authority jumped from my hand toward the card, establishing the link. Immediately, the card began to heat the air around it, giving off sound and a faint bluish light. I stepped back and focused on the link. I noticed it right away, this time it was different. There was a constant movement, a flow. My authority was streaming outward from me into the card. Why hadn't I noticed this before? Was it because fire was dynamic by nature? It produced heat, sound, light, all of that had to come from somewhere.

There were real physical effects and those effects probably had to be sustained. So the card was continuously drawing on my authority through the link. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Anansi, what's going on here? [The card's authority as Fire requires a flow of energy to support its identity. It takes energy from the nearest source, your authority.] Can I stop providing energy on my side? [Yes.] How? [I can do it for you.]"Do it," I said aloud, focusing on the link. I felt it immediately, the draw of authority stopped and the link settled into stillness, like it had with the steel card. But how it had stopped remained a mystery to me. Can you restart authority consumption? [No, not yet.] Not yet? Why not? [You haven't learned how to do it yet.] But I know how to stop it? [Yes.] No, Anansi, I don't know. What are you talking about? How do I do that? [It's your authority. No one else has power over it.] What? But you do.

[I am you.] That was simply true. Anansi was me. Other people didn't talk with their Animas, they felt them, understood them intuitively. What I had done to mine, letting its own identity emerge, had made me believe it had taken over some of my control. But that was an illusion. The control had always been there. Anansi was still part of me. I picked the card back up. Without the flow, it was growing colder. Be the life-fire again. Reignite. The link responded, carrying my authority once more.

I set the card down and stepped back, sitting cross-legged to focus. I had always thought of this power as something granted by the Domain or the soul core, but in truth, I was the author behind it. I had created them both and Anansi as well. I was the source. A memory surfaced: standing alone in the presence of the Voidlings, stripped down to nothing but my own soul. Just myself. The author. I focused on that feeling, of being only a soul, the origin. I am the magic, I thought. Nothing else. I make the rules here.

Then I turned my attention back to the link. Instantly, it responded. The authority stopped flowing into the card; its glow dimmed, the faint sound it made fell silent and after a few moments, its heat faded away. It still was fire, but fire that couldn't sustain itself on oxygen because it could not enter the bounds of the medium, it died, though it still carried the imprint of my initial command. And I wanted that authority back.

I was the Author and I alone decided if the art was still worthy of holding my power. You are just a normal card, I thought. It's my power that makes you more, but your time has ended. The moment I thought it, my authority came back to me. The link dissolved as if it had never existed. I wasn't trying to do it, I simply did it. And it worked. I burst into manic laughter. It was this easy. Dam had told me it would be hard and I'd believed him.

I'd put it off because of that first failure, a failure that came only because I'd chosen the wrong infusion to test, then let that discourage me. I'd assumed it had to be hard, because my instinctual training had made everything an obstacle. But this, this was simple. I was the Author of my magic, its source and its master and no part of it could rule me but myself. I kept going then.

Over and over, I infused card after card, tossing them all around me and each time, with nothing but a simple thought, Return to me, my authority flowed back. Every single time. Creating the link at a distance proved more difficult, but that was fine. I had the sense that all I needed was more training and another revelation, something that would feel obvious in hindsight but remained just out of reach for now. With renewed vigor, I returned to the university and finished my lectures for the day.

Jason was never attacked again and Peter didn't have to intervene, but that didn't mean the danger was over, maybe he really had avoided reflective surfaces and that alone was enough to stay safe. Still, I'd have to keep an eye on him. I laughed a little at that thought, yeah, keep an eye on him.

I had a couple of hours to spare before letting Elle take over for the night shift, so I set up my canvas and paints. The familiar scent of linseed oil and turpentine wrapped around me like a blanket, grounding me in a way few things could. It was soothing to stand here, just me, the brush and the hush of my own thoughts. I started with Jason's painting.

I wanted it to be warm, comforting, something he could look at on the bad days and remember he wasn't alone, even if he suspected I was half-crazy and knowing I didn't love him. Yet. I sketched us both loosely in charcoal, then began working the oils over it in gentle, steady layers. He stood behind me in the scene, taller, arms wrapped around my waist, holding me with that quiet steadiness that was truly him once you stripped away all the teasing.

His skin was a deep, warm brown that seemed to drink in sunlight and I made sure to catch the green in his eyes, bright and mischievous, reflecting back the force he always countered mine with. His hair, I painted in its usual soft brown, just tousled enough to look exactly like it did after he ran frustrated hands through it mid-study. I placed myself in front of him, leaning back against his chest, smiling. I kept my freckles visible, they still annoyed me in real life, but on canvas, they could be beautiful.

My hazel eyes looked outward, facing the viewer directly, my ponytail swinging down my back the way it always did when I tied it up on a busy morning. The color of our clothes barely mattered; it was all about the expression, the gentle light I laid on our faces. When I finally stepped back, the painting felt alive, a moment of peace we might never truly reach, but maybe that was exactly why it had to exist. I set it aside to dry and stretched out my shoulders before moving on to Nick's.

Nick deserved something chaotic, something to needle him in just the right way, that was our language, after all. I roughed in the perfect sprawl of a suburban street: white picket fences, postage-stamp lawns, cookie-cutter houses. Then, right in the center, I dropped in a rabbit so massive it dwarfed the parked minivans, a fuzzy titan with white fur streaked in auburn. Of course, I couldn't leave out the carrot, big as a streetlamp, taken by force straight out of a melting snowman's grin.

The oversized bunny was delighted, munching away like a suburban Godzilla about to ruin everyone's barbecue. I laughed out loud while mixing the orange paint. I added a few tiny, screaming neighbors running for their lives, then wiped my brush, stepping back to study both finished canvases. One painting to make up for feelings I didn't quite have. One painting for my own sense of humor. Yeah. That felt about right.