CoS20

## Chapter 20

**Chapter 20** of **City of Spells** follows **Saxony**.

## **Full Version**

IN THE CENTER OF the forest where Saxony’s family and her Kin had made their home for decades was a damn tornado.

Saxony didn’t know which of their enemies had conjured it, but she hadn’t exactly been given training on how to quell magical storms.

“Need a hand?” Wesley asked.

Saxony’s teeth gritted under the strain. “I can’t keep it at bay.”

Her hands were held up into the air, creating a force field around the beastly thing, but her entire body shook with the power of it.

Her feet skidded back against the soil as it pushed her away, refusing to bow down to her powers.

“Where are your Spiritcrafters?” Tavia asked.

They were the only ones who had dominion over the weather and nature’s spirit, and Tavia was right to think that if one of the Kingpin’s Spiritcrafters had conjured this, then they’d need a Crafter with the same specialty to stop it.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t on the cards right now.

“People are a little preoccupied,” Saxony said.

Every person in the camp was fighting for their lives, and for all they knew, every Spiritcrafter on their side had already lost theirs. Some kind of acid charm had rained down from the sky on the other side of camp, and by Saxony’s count, at least two dozen people had died from that magic alone.

“Then I suppose it’s up to us,” Tavia said.

Saxony turned away from the tornado to raise an eyebrow at her. “You got a charm in there that can make nature bow to your whim?”

“No,” Wesley said. “But I just might have something.”

He stepped beside Saxony and took in a breath, like he was really going to regret this next part.

“This time I want a *thank you*,” he said.

Saxony wasn’t quite sure what he meant, since she’d definitely thanked him for saving her life that *one* time, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t helped him out before.

Sure, she still owed him a life debt, but trust Wesley to be thinking of debts at a time like this.

Wesley raised his hands in a parallel of Saxony’s and pushed.

Intuitcrafters didn’t have force fields or control of the weather. They couldn’t bind their enemies or command nature, but it seemed like Wesley didn’t need to. He was a force of nature himself.

Not that Saxony would ever say something like that to his face.

As soon as Wesley thrust his arms out, the tornado winced, shuddering backward like it had been slapped. Saxony pushed forward with her own force field and with the weight of both of their magics working together, the beast began to truly tremble.

Saxony whipped her head over to Wesley and couldn’t help but smile at him, maybe for the first time. There was something about this moment—about them combining their powers—that made her feel at peace, even with a Gods-damned tornado at their feet. Wesley’s Crafter magic synced up to hers so easily that it made Saxony wonder if maybe, just maybe, the Many Gods had wanted them to be a team all along.

Wesley muttered something low and musical under his breath, and Saxony didn’t realize it was a spell until the trees of the forest began to coo in response.

She had never seen them act that way before.

They rocked back and forth, over and over, until they created their own kind of power source—a wind tunnel that crashed against the tornado and sent it crouching to the ground.

Wesley’s smile was like a weapon and Saxony couldn’t take her eyes off of him, not least because Wesley was glowing. Not in a weird flowery way that made Saxony’s bones shudder to consider—he was very literally glowing.

The staves that crisscrossed up Wesley’s arms, in between the slits of his tattoos, were alight, and shining, silver swirls that looked like stars trailed up his dark skin and toward his neck, mingling with the lines of the city he had tattooed over himself.

The storm didn’t stand a chance against them both.

The tornado wilted under their magic, Saxony’s force field and the weight of power Wesley was funneling, the two of them like an oddly perfect magical duo.

Crafters were always best when casting as a team; that was why they made Kins, after all.

“We need to press just a little harder,” Saxony said. “I can feel it dying.”

“Way ahead of you.”

Wesley thrust his hands out farther and thick black fire pooled from his fingertips, slowly at first, like shadows retreating from the dawn, but then it sprung to life and reached for the tornado.

It was like hands, burning and scratching and clawing.

Fire ready to devour the storm whole.

The base of the tornado turned to soot and the wind screamed, but the fire didn’t cease. It flowed from Wesley’s hands, such a pure and familiar black that Saxony almost lost her concentration.

She had seen fire like that before.

Just once, as a child.

The sight of it nearly brought her to her knees, seeing those flames in reality when she’d spent years only ever seeing them in her nightmares. Her heart thumped loudly and she tried to shut the memories out.

The last time she had seen her mother and her baby brother, before those flames swallowed them whole.

Saxony squeezed her fists together, her concentration on the tornado wavering. Though thankfully it didn’t matter, because under the flames it had crumbled to dust.

The fire slithered quickly back to Wesley’s fingers like an obedient servant.

“Where did you learn that?” Saxony asked him. “Who taught you that?”

Wesley only smirked back at her, blissfully unaware.”I don’t know,” he said. “Guess I’m just full of tricks.”

Tavia stepped beside Wesley and let out a whistle to echo the one he had given her earlier. “Nice moves,” she said. “Looks like you’ve got a taste for being the hero.”

Wesley’s smile was unrivaled. “It’s pretty easy.” He picked up her knife from the ground and handed it back to her. “We should do it more often.”

Tavia twisted the knife in her hands, grinning like the world owed her one. “Nah,” she said. “Sounds boring.”

Saxony caught her breath back, shaking her head as the shock of seeing that fire again started to subside, only to be replaced with a new ache. Seeing Tavia and Wesley together like that reminded her of Karam. Of the other half of her, that was out there somewhere. Saxony had half-expected Karam to show up in the height of battle, frowning at how easily the rest of them were ambushed, before saving everyone.

But she hadn’t.

Karam was still gone and there was no sign she’d be back anytime soon.

“You really did it,” her amja said, marveling at the scene. “You both saved us.”

Amja stared between Saxony and Wesley, like together they were a marvel, or an oddity, and then she scanned the staves up Wesley’s arms—as though she were translating the language of magic that marked him—and smiled, warmer than any smile she’d given Saxony since they’d come back.

Around them the battle settled, and though Saxony didn’t want to begin counting the bodies, it looked like they had won. They were diminished, but not defeated, and that was all that mattered.

The Kingpin had tried to stamp them out like ants, but he had failed.

They’d make sure he kept failing.