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“Yeah.” I wrap my hands tighter around the mug and press my thumbs against the warm ceramic. “I can’t wait.”

My electricity doesn’t spark when I say it, which means either the lie is getting easier, or my magic has stopped caring about the difference between truth and survival.

Eventually, the porch door opens, and Logan steps out, followed by Connor. Logan’s eyes find mine, and the knot in my chest loosens the way it always does when he walks into whatever room I’m in.

“It’s time,” he says simply.

I set down the mug. The hot chocolate is only half finished, which is a bummer, because it was really good hot chocolate and I was having a real conversation with a real friend… and now I have to go to Venezuela to pull a divine sword out of a lake in the middle of the most violent lightning storm on the planet.

Normal Saturday night things.

Ruby stands when I do, and she pulls me into a hug that’s tight and genuine. She smells like cocoa and pine, and my electricity sparks against her shoulder.

“Come back safe,” she says. “When you have the sword, I want to see it, because I need to know what’s been causing five hundred years of lightning.”

“Deal,” I say, and the word sits in my chest alongside every other promise I’m not sure I can keep.

She pulls back and holds me at arm’s length, her eyes bright and serious. “You’re one of us now, Jade. Whatever happens out there, remember that.”

My electricity dims for a second, and I twist my bracelet hard enough to leave a mark.

Connor extends his hand to Logan, and when they shake, the grip holds for a beat too long.

“Keep her safe.” Connor’s eyes cut to me before settling back on Logan.

“Always,” Logan says, and his certainty is so complete it makes my throat close.

Connor’s hand drops, he steps back, and I reach for Logan’s hand. His fingers are cool against mine, my electricity jumps into his palm, and he takes that sharp breath I’ll never get tired of hearing.

Without warning, he pulls me in by our joined hands and kisses me. My electricity jumps between our lips, his body tenses, and he pulls me flush against him. When my hands find his chest, I press them against the rings under his shirt, and for three seconds the guilt disappears into the taste of him and the way his fingers tighten in my hair before he pulls back.

“Ready?” he asks, although from the way his eyes are dilated, he’s ready for a lot more than fire travel.

“Ready,” I say, and just like that, the world dissolves in heat and orange light.

When it reforms, the humid, tropical air coats my skin in a layer of sweat. All I can do is stand there and breathe air that tastes like green things and water.

Once I’ve centered myself, I look around to get a sense of our surroundings.

We’re on a wooden dock in a village built on stilts. Houses rise out of the lake on thick posts, connected by plank walkways. Fishing boats are tied up along the dock. A few lights glow in windows, the sound of a radio drifts from one of the houses, and a dog barks in the distance.

Then, the sky cracks open.

The lightning hits all at once, dozens of bolts branching across the sky in silver-white forks that turn the entire lake into a strobing, electric blaze. The thunder follows so fast and deep that the dock vibrates under my feet. Then a door slams open on the nearest stilt house, and a man stumbles out onto his walkway, staring up at the sky with his eyes wide and his mouth open.

Meanwhile, my electricity races up and down my arms in bright, erratic arcs. Every bolt that strikes from the sky makes my magic surge, and the recognition is so intense it’s almost painful.

More people come out of their houses. A couple on a nearby dock have their phones out. A child is crying. An old woman is crossing herself. All of them are looking at a point on the lake about two miles out, where the lightning is converging, bending toward a single spot where the water is darker, the clouds are the thickest, and the strikes are hitting so fast that the surface of the lake is glowing white.

The Eternal Storm.

24

JADE

“We need a boat,” Logan says, already scanning the dock.

I look at the fishing vessels tied up along the walkway. They’re small and wooden, clearly built for lake fishing and not for sailing into a divine lightning storm to retrieve a celestial sword from a liminal space between worlds.