Another headstone burst into unholy green flames three yards to his left. Cym could feel the blistering heat on his face and thanked the gods that whoever was blasting them with spells had such lousy aim. They would eventually get lucky though, even if their aim did suck, so Cym had to do something before he and Fourteen got blown to smithereens.

“Astin?” Cym called out, trying to use his big boy voice instead of his I’d rather be buried in ten weighted blankets and eating cake than doing this voice. He was pretty confident he managed to land in between the two and give off an I will get through this and then go home, put on my shark slippers, and look at shirtless pictures of Henry Cavill vibe.

Astin would understand. Cym didn’t remember his cousin very well, but he hadn’t been a monster when they were young. Just a massive asshole. If Cym could just talk to his cousin, and explain about Fourteen, he might be able to convince his cousin to let the man go.

“Astin isn’t here, Boy. Your champion blew a chunk of his hand off,” a tinkling voice that had always reminded him of fairy bells informed him. “His chest isn’t looking so great either, you little shit.”

Goddamit. His cousin Helen had always been completely horrible. There was zero reasoning with her when they were little, and it didn't sound like she’d improved over the years at all.

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty, Hel? I don’t remember you being stupid, but things are bound to change after eleven years. Astin was trying to kill us. What did you expect us to do, weave him a gift basket?” Since diplomacy wasn’t going to work, he might as well be a catty bitch. There had to be some perks from being the family monster, after all.

“Keep talking, Boy. It’s only a matter of time before we find a way around your shield.” Another voice came from beside his cousin Helen. This one had changed more over the years than Helen’s had, but he recognized him anyway. He wasn’t likely to forget his brother Sterling.

Ow. Even Sterling was after him? Cute, chubby-cheeked Sterling, who had spent their childhood clinging to his leg and loving him with every inch of his tiny soul, hated Cym too? He shouldn’t be surprised, but dammit. Knowing his baby brother was part of Team Kill the Family Freak fucking hurt.

But Cym couldn’t fall into that pit right now. He had a norm to protect. Cym could fall apart later when Fourteen was safe.

Cym kept his head down as low as he could, trying to lay eyes on his family. Sterling and Helen were too young to be powerful enough to hide themselves with magic. Out of everyone in their generation, Astin alone had the age and the training to do such advanced magic.

Cym finally spotted them by the fence. Helen—the spitting image of Cym if he were a girl—was pacing back and forth in clear agitation, but his brother appeared completely at ease. Sterling stood balanced on the old, wrought-iron fence, looking more like a teenage boy trying to impress his girlfriend than one trying to kill his older brother. His mouse-brown hair looked effortless and windswept, but Cym recognized the hairstyle from a teen magazine he’d read a few months earlier.

Had it belonged to Sterling before it came to Cym?

Looking closer, Cym noticed his brother making a circle with the index finger of his right hand, then flattening the hand and pushing it out, as if he were stopping traffic. All the grass died around him in a giant circle, but where he and Fourteen crouched, the plants were unaffected.

“I don’t have a shield.” Though, improbable as it seemed, Cym was beginning to suspect this was untrue.

“You’re so funny, Sunny.” A third voice rang out to his left, and he saw his aunt Stella saunter down the sidewalk to join Sterling and Helen. Stella’s red dress flared out behind her like a banner and should have looked overly dramatic, but it fit with the long, mahogany hair curling around her shoulders.

Stella had always looked like a movie star to Cym.

The old nickname echoed inside his head, drawing out memories of better times, memories of laughter, ice cream, and splashing by a river. His heart clenched, and a tear fell down his cheek, but there was anger, not sadness in his voice when Cym called out, “You have no right to call me that anymore.”

“Whatever, Boy.” His aunt’s cheerful voice was more appropriate for chasing down a naughty child rather than supervising an assassination. Stella made the same hand gesture as Sterling had, circling the index finger of her right hand and then putting her hand out.

The dead plants around Cym turned to dust, but once again, he and Fourteen remained unscathed.

“I already tried that one, Stella, and got a big, fat goose egg for my trouble,” Sterling told her, bored arrogance coloring his words.

Cym took a second to check on Fourteen again, who was muttering something that sounded like, “. . . should have seen that coming,” while struggling to pull himself to a sitting position.

“Stay down!” Cym hissed, and when Fourteen didn’t respond, he grabbed his hand to tug the man to the ground. Fourteen flopped over and lay still once more.

While Cym was happy the man was no longer presenting a target, his worry was mounting. How was he going to get Fourteen out of here if he couldn’t remain conscious? Even if Cym found a way to get past his family, Fourteen was far too big to carry.

“How about this one?” Helen asked her companions, and she put her left hand over her right wrist, grasped it, and pulled it sharply to the left.

Cym threw himself on top of Fourteen as several rows of tombstones had their top halves sheared away. He was showered with shrapnel and felt small cuts peppering his exposed skin. “Stop that!” His voice rang out over what was left of the cemetery. “There’s a norm here—an innocent! Just let me get him out of here, and I’ll go with you.”

“No . . .” Fourteen groaned underneath him.

“You hush. I’m in charge right now.” Cym patted his cheek gently.

“I think it’s just adorable that our Sunny thinks he’s in any position to bargain right now, don’t you, dears?” Stella put her hands together as if she were about to say a prayer, then drew them up to the sky, parted them and brought them out in a half circle to rest by her side.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe if we do one together?” Helen suggested. The three came together in a huddle.

Cym couldn’t keep relying on whatever miracle was keeping them safe. He had to do something right now. He spied Fourteen’s pack and pulled it out from under his body, hoping it contained something that could help him. Inside, he found a few chunks of a gray, clay-like material, so very many guns, and several different types of ammo that he wouldn’t know how to install even if he did manage to figure out which guns they went with.

When he got to a wicked-looking knife, Cym paused. He could probably manage to poke it into someone if he could get close enough. Of course, the chances he’d poke it into himself instead were much higher.

Then he got an idea. It was probably a terrible one, but it was all he had.

Due to the chaotic nature of his magic, Cym had never been trained, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t do magic. He was still technically a witch even if his family wanted nothing to do with him.

He had often done accidental magic when he was little. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d had a tantrum as a child and turned the contents of his entire room red from anger or knocked over furniture with a random blast of energy. The only reason the building he’d been kept in hadn’t burned down from his accidental fires was because it had dampening spells built into the walls.

Over the years, he had begun to fugue out when his emotions got the better of him rather than explode with accidental magic. Once he escaped, it had been a pain to discard the habit, but he had worked hard to let it go—becoming senseless under stress was the worst thing that could happen to someone on the run.

Cym had gone to the closest library and found a book on stress relief. It suggested methods like meditation or joining a yoga class—something he rejected immediately. Who would want to take a yoga class with him in the room? So he got a book on meditation and learned how to calm his breathing and heart rate. It was hard work, but eventually, he got good enough that he stopped blanking out or having random magical outbursts.

What would happen if he stopped accessing the still, quiet space in his mind earned through meditation techniques? Would it release his magic? Or better yet, what would happen if he let go of the stillness and actually tried to cast a spell?

Cym watched his brother’s hands move in a complicated pattern while he argued with their aunt, trying to explain a spell he thought they should try. It looked too difficult for Cym to recreate, but he had just seen a very easy-looking spell performed twice.

Peering around a headstone, Cym pointed his right hand at his family. He took a deep breath, circled his right index finger, flattened his hand, and pushed it out. The only thing that happened was that his family looked like they’d come to a decision on what nasty thing they wanted to try on him next.

Joining hands, they broke out of the huddle. Stella stood tall and strong. The smug look on her face made Cym think she’d won whatever argument they’d been having.

Sterling stepped away from their aunt and Helen, his face uncertain. “I don’t think this is a good idea. This is exactly the sort of thing that will bring their attention down on us. Mother told us to be careful!”

With a scornful glance at Sterling, Stella joined hands with Helen and threw her right hand toward the sky. She barked out a sharp, unintelligible sound and reached her left hand out to point toward the buildings behind the cemetery on Cym’s side.

Cym really needed to get his spellcasting shit together before he and Fourteen were turned to toast. What was Cym missing? Maybe he had to think really hard about wanting it to happen. He tried again and felt a roiling of something pink in his chest, but nothing happened.

Perhaps pointing wasn’t enough—in a lot of the fantasy books he’d read, there had been several components to casting. What were they again?

He bit his lip as he worked to remember. Focus seemed important. Precision too. He was pretty damn focused right now, and he thought he had the hand gesture down, so what else did he need?

There was a violent clap of thunder, and the building behind him came down with a deafening screech. Dust billowed everywhere and bricks and chunks of gods-knew-what began pelting him. He tried to throw himself over Fourteen to shelter him, but he rolled away from Cym as soon as he touched him.

“Don’t… touch… me,” Fourteen slurred and scrambled backward until he was stopped by a broken headstone.

Stung, Cym crawled away as far as he dared. “S… sorry. The building exploded, and now there’s stuff falling. Bad stuff.” He gestured toward the debris raining down around them with one hand while trying to protect his face with the other.

Fourteen stayed conscious, but he didn’t look good. If Cym didn’t know any better, he’d say the man was drunk. Fourteen leaned against the broken stone, pressed his cheek against it, and gazed at his hand like he’d never seen it before. When a brick bounced off his shoulder, he didn’t even react.