Hidden Island Chapter 40, part 3 of 4

Hidden Island
Chapter 40, part 3 of 4

"You're talking about an evocation reaction!" Tonya translated. One of Bella's first lessons was about why foul wards are worse than no wards." Her eyes widened. I'm an evoker now?"
Janie mimed, weighing something in her hands. "There is a difference between accidentally causing an evocation reaction and being a genuine evoker." She sighed and sat down on Tonya's other side. "I wish I knew more about this."

"We got to fix the mirror," Tonya said frantically. "I need to talk to Bella."

"Kaduska's working on finding a mirror that will fit in the frame," Caine said. "Until then, you just have to be careful."

"And practice!" Tonya said.

Caine and Janie shared a worried look over Tonya's head.

"This place is a crumbling firetrap. It is not a good place for experiments with uncontrolled magic," Caine said gently.

"And evocation is strictly outlawed by the Magistrate," Janie added. "Accidents happen, but deliberately attempting evocation is... treated harshly."

"But this time, I only made steam," Tonya whined. "That's not dangerous. It's only dangerous when I cum! The other day we managed to fuck without me blowing up!"

Janie's cheeks reddened, and Caine looked a bit hurt. "We weren't..." he sighed and glanced at Janie apologetically. "When you... finished, I wasn't touching you. I was careful about that."

"You weren't?" Tonya asked.

Caine raised a teasing eyebrow. "You don't remember me taking cover under the table?"

Janie made a slight noise that could have been embarrassment or stifled laughter.

"It was a big fucking orgasm, so I was a little distracted," Tonya said with a slight glare. "I noticed afterward. I just thought you were making fun of me."

"Well, I was doing that too," Caine smirked. Then he looked down at himself and tapped his chest again. "Come to think of it, you couldn't finish until after I was refilled. It was like that in the baths, too. I had been feeling tired. When we..." Caine glanced at Janie for a moment, trying to take care with his words. "When we were together, it slowly replenished me. Then when you finished, it was like you sucked everything back out of me all at once."

Tonya looked horrified and sad. "And then boom."

"Right," Caine continued. "So I was careful last night and didn't touch you at the end. Seems like it worked."

"No, boom," Tonya smiled, then frowned. "So now I can only cum when you do it, and you
can't touch me when it happens? That's bullshit!"

Janie's confusion overrode her embarrassment, and she held up a hand. "Wait. Earlier. You said your reservoir of energy was replenished by..." she gestured awkwardly between Tonya and Caine.

"Yeah," Caine said.

Janie rubbed her eyes in confusion. "It doesn't make sense."

"Makes sense to me," Tonya said. "Fucking is how I do all my magic. Bella, too."

"That's... not what my reservoir is," Caine said. "Or where it comes from."

"Energy's energy, right," Tonya shrugged.

"Not really," Janie said, pursing her lips momentarily. "Forwards, usually yes, but most rituals are designed for a particular kind of energy."

Caine nodded in understanding. "Waterwheels and windmills do similar things but aren't interchangeable."

"Exactly," Janie agreed. "So Tonya shouldn't be able to transfer her... type of energy to you.

Not unless your reservoir is some conversion and containment ward."

"I don't think so," Caine said.

Janie's brows were knitted in thought as she tried to remember all the relevant details of her ward theory classes from years ago. "In that case, Tonya shouldn't be able to replenish you without a complex ritual that would turn one type of energy into another, and you'd also need some transfer conduit.

"Well, that's how it started!" Tonya said excitedly. "Bella used the mirrors to transfer energy from all of us to her ritual. Maybe Caine and I just stayed that way? Now I fill up his magic bucket when he fucks me."

Janie rubbed her face with her hands to clear her head and ignore Tonya's colorful phrasing.

"But why only you two?"

"Dunno," Tonya shrugged again. She realized Caine was staring at her like she was growing a second head. "What?"

Caine looked more confused than Janie. "You think it's you refilling my energy?"

"I thought we figured that out already?" Tonya asked as if what she'd said was obvious.

"I was thinking of it like a leak. Whatever happened caused you to start draining me. When we're in contact, it plugs the leak so I can replenish myself." Caine shook his head.

Tonya giggled. "Real deep contact."

Caine just stared at her flatly.

She snickered. "I like it when you plug the leak."

"Are you finished?" Caine asked.

Tonya nodded.

Caine continued. "It should be impossible for me to pull energy from you and turn it into something I can store, so it never occurred to me that might be what's happening." He scratched his head and looked down at his hands and chest.

Janie felt like she was starting to understand what was going on. "How you describe it does sound like a transfer ward."

Tonya shook her head. "It goes both ways, however. Transfer wards don't do that, right? When I blow up, it yanks all the energy out of him."

"You're right. The flow is only supposed to go one way. When energy travels back to its source, it means the transfer failed," Janie said as confusion took over again.

"And there's the part about turning sex energy into whatever energy is in Caine's magic bucket," Tonya added. "Transfer wards don't do that either."

"My magic bucket?" Caine asked, sounding pained.

"It's your fault I have buckets on the brain," Tonya said blithely.

"Maybe I can ask one of the Archivists about this," Janie suggested.

"You're not going anywhere," Caine reminded her. "Price on your head, remember?"

Janie threw her hands up in frustration. "We do need Bella."

"That's a problem for later," Caine said, standing up. "Right now, we're all wet and naked, and Tonya's the only one who's had her bath."

"You two go ahead," Janie said. It had been a long day already, and she was exhausted between the stress of thinking the lighthouse was on fire and the frustration of being unable to figure out what was happening with Caine and Tonya's bizarre connection. She was also acutely aware that they'd all been naked for more than an hour now. She wasn't sure how much more she could take.

"Nope," Tonya said, taking her hand and pulling her back towards the tub. "Caine still has to teach me how to help with your back. We've been naked for a while now. You can't get embarrassed anymore."

"I beg to differ," Janie said half-heartedly. Despite her protests, she let herself be pulled back to the steamy washroom.

The top of the ridge was mostly barren. The sea spray and warm weather tossed a mist cloak over the southern ridgeline. During the day, it was probably refreshing, but now that evening was starting to settle, the breeze and mist sent a shiver over Jack's skin. It wasn't thick enough to obscure her vision, but it did make everything hazy at a distance. Towards the far end of the curve, she made out a lone, ruined structure. Its roof had collapsed.

Other than that partially destroyed building, there was nothing up here—just a few scraggly trees and patches of dark red wildflowers.

Jack had expected people to live up here. The view was beautiful. She was baffled by why anyone would live in a hole in the cliff's side when the ridge's top was wide enough to build on.

On the other side of the curve, there were trees. That's where she and Will had come from when they made their way out of the jungle. It seemed like far more work to lower logs into the cove than to drag them around the top of the ridge.

A well-worn pathway led from the last set of stairs out of the shantytown to where the worn walkway disappeared down the other side of the ridge.

Walking across the narrow strip of land took less than a minute. There was no lift on the ocean side of the hill, just a trailhead marked by a pair of knee-high standing stones. Far below, past the long trail of stairs and switchbacks, she could see the strip of beach against the lapping ocean and the copes of trees that separated it from the ridge, but again, she saw no homes.

No buildings of any kind. As far as she could see, the coast was pristine and untouched by civilization.

A reef mostly surrounded the island. She wasn't a sailor, but she knew reefs meant good fishing. This place was naturally defended and rich with resources. It made no sense that the only inhabitants were a bunch of shady pirates in a hidden cove.

She rested her hand on one of the standing stones marking the trailhead. It was carved like the faces above the docks. These were nesting eagles. She'd studied enough of Akula art to know it when she saw it. It made sense. This was precisely the sort of place the Akula looked for when they migrated.

The stone carving was old but needed to be more ancient. The Akula permanently settled next to the water. They built elaborate floating docks, networks of rafts, shipyards, and fisheries.

Their homes were often on stilts, rising straight out of the water. If they had been here long enough to carve house-sized faces into the edge of the cove and the stones on top of the highest part of the island, they had indeed been here long enough to build homes. Where had they gone?

She wandered towards the ruined building, trying to give her mind something else to think about other than her conflicting feelings about Will and wild guesses about Akula's relics.

Between the misty ocean spray and the setting sun's glare, it was hard to make out anything but the shape of it in the distance. It wasn't until she got closer that she realized it had been burned. Scorch marks streaked upward from the first-floor windows. The exterior of the second story was almost entirely black. What was left of the shingled roof looked like charcoal. It seemed to Jack like an inn from an Imperial city had been transported to the top of this island crest and then set ablaze. It made Jack feel like she was looking at a monument to tragedy. Everything about it seemed lonely, sad, and ruined.

"I hate her, Katie," Jack heard someone slur from nearby.

Jack's expression twisted in discomfort as she recognized who was talking. Unless there was another foul-mouthed woman with a Casserly brogue here, that was Candy.

"Dammit, Will," Jack muttered. She knew it wasn't fair to blame odd coincidences on Will's curse. If anyone was actually to blame, it was herself.

Whatever the case, she knew better than to believe in coincidences when Will said the curse was acting up.

"It's always the same shite," Candy's voice continued as Jack tried to figure out where it was coming from. "Oh, ye got troubles? I'm so sorry to hear that." the voice said, sounding like she was mockingly impersonating someone else. "Come work for me; I'll make it all better!"

Jack followed the sound around the building until she saw that it wasn't just part of the roof that had collapsed. The far corner of the building had caved in. She could see a dining room through the remaining half of a ruined bay window. The corner walls had fallen, but the ceiling still jutted out, covering most of the room below like a canopy. A partially charred table and old weathered chairs still stood, and a large fireplace that looked like it was now doing most of the work of holding up the unclasped wall.

Sure enough, at the table sat the redhead Jack had managed to upset earlier accidentally.

The bottle in her hand was empty primarily, and she was talking to herself.

"She thinks I Dinna know that I can not tell!" Candy snapped angrily. "I'm not a fucking idiot!

It's like what happened with our dad’s, and take you!"

She took a swig off her bottle. "I Dinna know how much longer I can take it, Kate. Even after everything that bitch did take us, Cal's still a lost fucking cause. If not for Cass, I'd have been gone years ago. I don't rightly want to leave her or you, but this place will be the death o' me."

The scene slowly squeezed Jack's chest with sadness. Watching the redhead talk to the space made Jack feel like whatever tragedy had happened was still happening. "Excuse me," Jack said, not knowing exactly what to say but uncomfortable about how much she had already witnessed.



To be continued