Vespertine

Even though nobody said it, everybody knew it.

Caiden Riis was dying.

And even though, on principle, Quinn refused to think about it, a part of her knew that they had been wrong. That there was no such thing as free power, that Caiden’s unnatural ability was only the result of a mutation that channeled all of his power too quickly, too fast. That they had been foolish to think otherwise.

He had used it all up, and now, he was paying the price.

The convulsions had ceased after twenty minutes, but only because Caiden had lapsed into unconsciousness. They had transferred him to his bed, where he drifted in and out of consciousness, not seeming to comprehend anything that was happening.

Quinn had paced, first around the gym, then around his room, then around the gym again, trying desperately to come up with a way to save him.

She had nothing.

She made her way up to his room again, and sat in the chair next to his bed.

Even in unconsciousness, he looked as though he was in pain. His eyebrows were knit together, his closed eyes screwed tightly shut. Or maybe he wasn’t unconscious after all, just in too much pain to do or say anything.

Quinn wanted to do something, anything, but found that she had no idea what that something might be.

So she sat, and she waited, and she prayed.

A couple hours passed, and then Caiden opened his eyes and turned his head and smiled at her.

She nearly jumped out of her chair, but forced herself to stay calm and smile back. “Hey, Caiden.”

“Hey,” he croaked. “Why can’t I move?”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I can’t move.”

Quinn wanted to cry, but pushed the urge down and took his hand instead. “Can you feel my hand?”

He nodded, imperceptibly. Then he smiled again. “Oh, never mind. I get it. You don’t have to pretend, Quinn. I know what dying feels like. I’ve felt it in a lot of other people.”

He squeezed her hand slightly. “I don’t seem to be able to heal myself,” he murmured. “Probably because of the reversal.”

“Stop,” Quinn ordered. “It’ll be alright. We’ll figure this out.” The words sounded empty.

Caiden looked back up at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s better this way, you know?”

Her heart contracted sharply in her chest. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that, you asshole.”

He laughed weakly. “Really, Quinn. It’s okay. I can’t imagine a life without my powers, anyways, and I can’t imagine a life in which I have them and people actually leave me alone. There’ll always be another Astor. Somebody after me.”

“Better than being dead,” Quinn insisted, brushing away a tear that had made an unwelcome arrival.

He didn’t reply.

“What could have set this off?” Quinn asked, softly. “You—You were just fine a few hours ago. You weren’t…” You weren’t dying.

He attempted to shrug, but didn’t quite see the motion through. “Probably the last time I used my power drained the last of it. It doesn’t matter, though. This would have happened eventually. If not that time, it would’ve been the next. An inevitability.”

He didn’t say what they both knew, which was that the last time he had used his power was when she had been dying.

Caiden looked at her again, his eyes softening. “At least I saved you,” he whispered, and a dull kind of anger flared in Quinn, the all-too-familiar kind, the kind that made her curse at the universe for taking away people that were important to her.

“No,” she said firmly. “You’re not dying. You’re not going to, okay? You are not going to die, Caiden.” He can’t. Please. I’ve lost so much already, please, please. She felt a moment of guilt for her selfishness, for praying that Caiden wouldn’t die just for her own sake.

“You know,” he said, managing a mischievous grin, “You never did get me back for grabbing your ass.”

Quinn wanted to laugh, but for some reason that brought on more tears, so she gave a strangled sort of laugh that turned to a sob halfway through. “Please, shut up. Shut up about that.”

“I won’t mention it if you don’t,” he whispered, and then his eyes closed and Quinn felt her heart stop for a second before she realized his chest was still rising and falling, his hand was still warm, and he wasn’t dead.

Yet.

“Caiden? Caiden?” She shook him gently, but his eyes remained stubbornly closed. She waited for another ten minutes, before realizing that unlike the other spells, he wasn’t drifting back into consciousness this time.

“Salvatore!” She shouted, because she couldn’t think of anybody else to yell for.

As if he had been waiting, Salvatore immediately appeared in the doorway and came to stand next to Quinn.

“Think of something,” she demanded, turning to him. “Think of something!”

He looked sympathetic. “I don’t know, Quinn. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’m sorry, but I have no idea.”

“Please!” She said, only she wasn’t really talking to him anymore.

Then she stood up and kicked over the chair, and Salvatore let her, because angry was Quinn Vespertine’s version of sad, and because there was a sixteen-year-old comatose boy lying on the bed, and they could do nothing but watch him die.

“I wish magic wasn’t real,” Quinn said savagely. “I wish we could just cut him off from it. Magic steals. It steals everything.”

And then, abruptly, the anger vanished, replaced with a look of puzzled concentration.

“What? What is it?” Salvatore asked, recognizing that she had suddenly thought of something.

“What if we actually do cut him off from his magic?” She asked, whirling around. “Suck it from him? Then it’d stop affecting him, right?”

Salvatore frowned. “But how—“

“That magic-sucking thing,” Quinn interrupted, answering his question before he could finish it. “The one Astor used to steal from the field! The big cylinder thing with all the wires and stuff! We could put Caiden in it, couldn’t we? Drain his magic?”

Salvatore looked unconvinced. “I don’t know. It’s never been tried. It might not work.”

“Well, we have to do something. We can’t just sit here.”

He said, warningly, “It might kill him.”

“If that doesn’t,” she replied, “this will.”

Salvatore nodded. “Are you sure? Even if this works, Caiden did say he couldn’t imagine life without his powers,” he pointed out.

She looked down at him. “Too bad he’s not awake.”

Salvatore found it hard to argue with that, so the two of them wrapped Caiden securely in his blankets and lifted him up, down the stairs and into the truck. Arette climbed in after them.

“I’m coming, too,” she said. Nobody stopped her.

They didn’t speak on the drive over to the compound. The place was sealed off for the investigation, but there was nobody there, seeing as it was late. They parked the truck and Arette ripped off yellow tape to clear a path for Quinn and Salvatore, who carried Caiden in between them.

Wordlessly, they cooperated and navigated through the compound until they reached the restricted corridor. To their relief, all the doors had been forcibly opened and locked in their open positions as the government had done a sweep of the area.

By the time they made it to the cylinder room, Quinn’s arms were aching, but she didn’t complain.

They set Caiden down so they could examine the contraption in the middle of the room.

“I think it’s off,” Arette observed, feeling the smooth metal of the cylinder. “I can’t tell without my magic, but I get the feeling it isn’t doing anything right now.”

“I agree,” said Salvatore, who was messing with one of the panels. “Ah—here.” He pulled a thick wire from where it attached into the ground, presumably to suck power from the flux lines underground. He eyed the plug warily. “Don’t suppose Caiden has any socket-shaped appendages.”

“Just let him hold it,” Quinn said, taking the plug from Salvatore and laying it in Caiden’s open hand. She made sure he was making contact with the metal, and then closed his hand around it, keeping her own around his fingers to make sure he didn’t let go. “Arette, can you find a way to turn it on?”

Arette nodded, and then observed the cylinder for a couple more minutes before finally just deciding to flip the switch protruding from the side of it.

The machine began to glow, sucking from the field once more, every plug in it taking from the flux lines—except one.

The plug in Caiden’s hand didn’t seem to be doing anything remarkable, but its effect on Caiden was obvious. There was a faint glow from within his body, and it seemed to be reaching to the plug, flowing along the lines of his body to disappear into the metal.

When Caiden stopped glowing, Quinn pulled the plug from his hand, careful not to touch the metal, and then waved it frantically at Arette.

Arette shut off the machine quickly, and the glow within faded. The cylinder hadn’t gathered enough power to create another field, and the energy seemed to just dissipate.

Quinn, Arette, and Salvatore all crowded around Caiden.

Did it work? Quinn thought desperately. Did I kill him?

Just as she was beginning to think the latter was true, Caiden’s eyes flew open and both Arette and Salvatore jumped a bit.

“Caiden!” Quinn cried, and threw her arms around his neck as he sat up.

“Ow,” he said. “I feel like I got electrocuted.”

Then he looked at Quinn, who was clutching him tightly. “You made me mortal, didn’t you?” He asked accusingly as she drew back.

For a second, Quinn was afraid that he meant it, that he really would rather be dead than powerless, and then she caught the grin.

“So this makes us even, right?”

Quinn laughed and hugged him again, and inside she was thanking God, the universe, karma, thanking them for finally letting her keep a piece of happiness.

“Yes, you dumbass. We’re even.”