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My other hand flies up to shield my face. Her power slams into me, but unlike before, where it invaded every inch of my body, it coalesces on my palm. As if it were my magic all along.

I lift an eyebrow. What is this? I bring the arm down, gazing at the twin pools of stormcraft magic. The white orbs expand, growing twice their size. How is this possible? How can I hold her magic, let alone make it grow?

“What is this?” she demands, an echo of my own thoughts. She launches more magic at me, but it’s weaker this time as it hits me, as if she doesn’t have the same amount of power.

Her magic doesn’t hurt; it only brightens the power puddled in my palms. Strengthens it.

{This is you,} the voice says, cracking and breaking, like it’s a letter being ripped in two.

{What do you mean?} I ask quickly, desperate to read the rest of the words before it’s gone.

“Holy shit, she’s a siphon,” Bart says, fear creeping into his words.

But I don’t care about his voice or why he shifted back to his human form; I only care about the one that’s been with me for as long as I can remember, the thing that is as familiar as a lifelong friend and yet as strange as us having spent years apart.

{This is who . . . you were . . . meant to be.}

And like a petal stolen by the wind, the voice floats away, and I know no matter how hard I try to chase it, I won’t ever find it again.

My brow furrows.

There’s magic in my hands.

Power I’m holding, commanding, but how?

Siphon.

That’s what Bart had called me.

My gaze lifts, my body barely flinching as another pitiful strike of Melody’s power cuts through me and my affinity gobbles it up. The magic warms my skin like the sun, flooding into my palm to join the rest of the stormcraft she’s thrown at me.

I wiggle my fingers to see how it’ll react. Suddenly, it shoots out, and lightning flashes all around me, encasing me in stormcraft magic. As I marvel at the sight, taste the magic like a penny held under the tongue, I know with absolute certainty that Bart is right.

I am a siphon. I can take magic from other paranorms. I can use it for myself. Melody’s magic is mine, if only for a time.

This is who I’m meant to be.

This—the void, the thing inside me, the hunger—is my power.

The same tugging sensation in my chest returns.

My magic.

My affinity.

It’s here.

Melody’s eyes flare and she takes a step back.

She’s there.

My lips curl back. “My turn.”

Magic snaps and crackles at the tips of my fingers, and I take a step toward Melody. She stumbles back. Her minions, Bart and Brittany, have stopped what they’re doing, which I belatedly realize is fighting with the bonded. They didn’t submit to her demands.

Laughter bubbles up, and the sound falls from my lips, dark and vicious. They’re not hers. Not that I want them, but Goddess, does it feel good for her to lose the very thing she covets.

It’s not enough, though—not for almost killing me. Not for taking my friends and threatening them.