“Your first lesson is going to be . . .”
“. . . getting your things back.”
“Nope you’re right, that’s too much. You might end up flinging something else out of whack.” Emma stepped out of his arms and glanced around the room. She touched her index finger to her lips. “Hmm, let’s see. All right, I have it. See my little jade elephant next to my bed?” She reached for Flint’s clenched fists. “Open your palms.”
He scowled at his hands but did as she asked.
“I want you to focus on the statue and think about it in your hand.”
“Close my eyes?” He had four siblings. He didn’t close his eyes and put his hand out for anyone.
“It will help you visualize. Geez, Flint, have a little faith.”
“I have faith but not a lot of trust.”
“Yeah, that’s obvious. Come on, you can do it.” Her eyes shimmered in the dim light of the room. She had piled her hair on top of her head, and it bounced as she talked. Like the actress Wendy Smart in that dragon shifter movie, Dragon Days of Summer. He’d gone to see it with Tad and Reagan in New York when Tad and his new mate were on vacation. Tad had taken them to a fancy theater in Little China.
“Fine.”
“Great.” She took a step back.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m clearing the blast zone.”
He gritted his teeth together and closed his eyes. The little elephant. It looked like the one in front of the . . .
23
Boom. The house shook.
“Goddess.” Emma’s insides were shaking. A two-foot jagged hole separated her and Flint. Dust floated around the room. “Flint, are you okay?” Emma flicked her wrist and fixed the hole and the structural damage to the floor and ceiling below. It drained her completely to empty, and she wobbled forward.
Flint grabbed her and held her head to his chest. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good, no damage to me. Are you okay?”
He held her out away from him. “I’m sorry. I could have killed you.”
“I would hope not. But yeah. What exactly happened?” Emma leaned around to the side of the bed where the jade statue still sat. Weird, she thought, he must have enlarged it. “What were you thinking about?”
“The statue, like you told me to.”
“Well, the statue is there, so what is downstairs?” They stared at each other for a second before they raced down to the kitchen below.
There next to her table was a five-foot-tall green-painted cement statue of a dragon, not an elephant.
“Any chance this is what you were thinking of a minute ago?” Emma patted the five-foot-tall statue on the nose.
“Fuck.”
“I’m guessing you’ve seen my new kitchen table before?”
“Double fuck.” The legs of what used to be Emma’s table jutted out from under the concrete mass. “I’ll get you a new table.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine, Flint. I was the one who tried to get you to use your magic. We’ll work it out.” She stared back at the green-painted statue. “Where is this from?”
“New York. Outside of a restaurant my brother likes.”
“Flint. Sit down.” She took his hand, but there was nowhere to sit in the kitchen anymore. The entire dinette she’d bought at the thrift store was firewood now. Even a day’s worth of magic wasn’t going to put it back together. She tugged him out of the kitchen to the living room. “Sit.” How was he even standing, bringing that kind of weight as far as he had?
“I think you should sit, Emma. You look pale.”
“Pale? You think I’m pale. Flint, how far is New York City?”
“Depends if you take the Turnpike or route 80. I prefer—”
“Not by car, Flint. Like, miles?”
“I don’t know . . . around 300 miles or so, I guess. Maybe more.”
“How much power do you have? How are you getting rid of your power?”
Flint wandered out of the kitchen and sat on the edge of her new leather sofa, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and looked down at the ground. “I use orbs, power orbs.
Things were coming together for her. Power had pulsated around his cabin. “Like, a lot of orbs?”
“I don’t know, but yeah, I guess. My brother ships them to me.”
