Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The next morning, it was still dark. Sebastian and James didn't comment on it. The darkness just hung over them like the worst kind of third wheel. But what could they do other than go on as usual?

Down in the kitchen, Sebastian handed James his leather jacket. "Here."

James's brow wrinkled. "You don't want to keep wearing it?"

"No, I do. But if you never wear it, it'll stop smelling like you."

James grinned. "I hadn't thought of that." He slipped the jacket on, and Sebastian took a moment to appreciate the sight. He'd missed James wrapped in leather.

Sebastian grabbed the hoodie James had been about to put on. "I'll settle for this, for now." He pulled it over his head, brought the collar to his nose, and sniffed. "It's almost like being wrapped up in you all day."

James crushed him into a hug. "I'll wrap you up whenever you want, sweetheart."

Sebastian melted.

They'd managed to stop clinging to each other and eat breakfast by the time Eli and Parker walked into the kitchen. Sebastian hadn't even heard the front door open. He'd been too caught up in James and making sure he finished his pancakes to notice anything else.

Eli plonked his laptop down on the counter without saying hello. "Analysis is not going well."

James gave his brother a concerned frown. "Why not?"

"I don't know why. That's the problem." Eli opened the computer. "If I knew why the data looked like this, everything would be fine."

"What does it look like?" Sebastian peered over Eli's shoulder at the laptop screen. It was nothing but a mess of numbers to him.

Eli opened a graph depicting a scattered mess of dots. "There's almost no pattern to the energy flowing through the vein intersection. It's chaos." He pointed at the dots. "This is nothing like what I recorded at the vein in town, which is connected to this mess, so you'd think they'd have some similarities."

Eli pulled up another graph with dots forming a tightly grouped, fairly steady line. "The amount of energy flowing through town hardly changes. And look how much higher the energy levels are at the intersection." He switched back to the first graph.

"Doesn't that make sense?" James scratched his chin. "We know the veins are unstable at Storm House. Maybe this is what unstable looks like."

Parker bumped Eli's shoulder with his. "That's a good point."

"Sure." Eli ran a hand through his hair with a frustrated air. "But the fuel cell is supposed to be stabilizing things. And speaking of the fuel cell, why does adding more energy stop the veins from exploding? After seeing this, I'd have thought less energy would help the situation, bring it back down to the levels I'm seeing in town."

"But we can't take energy out of the veins." Even Sebastian knew what an impossible task that was. Solving that riddle made Nelson Power one of the richest companies in the world, and the answer was kept tightly locked away.

Sebastian wondered if Nelson Storm had been trying to use the veins on their property to figure out how to extract magical power from the earth all those years ago, but he had no idea how Nelson might have done that. If that's what Nelson and Sullivan had been up to in the clearing, it had clearly failed. And if sucking more energy out would have solved the problem, Nelson surely would have come home to save his brother once he'd figured out how to do it properly, not disappeared on him and never looked back.

"Of course we can't take energy out." Eli huffed at the suggestion.

"My family always framed the problem as an energy debt," Sebastian said. "So adding more makes sense."

"Only this doesn't look like a lack of energy being filled." Eli pointed at the graph accusatorily.

"Then what does it look like? Do veins ever behave like this?" Parker brushed back a stray lock of Eli's hair that had fallen in his face. "Have you ever read anything about this kind of chaotic energy?"

Eli chewed his lip, looking up at Parker. "Shifting veins are much more variable, maybe even a bit chaotic. But this vein is fixed. Its path doesn't change. I don't know if its energy pattern resembling a shifting vein tells us anything about how to fix it." Eli seemed overwhelmed and much less sure they'd be able to solve this problem than he had before.

Parker put a hand on Eli's shoulder. "Eli, you aren't going to have the answer instantly. We just need to do some research, like you said. We should see if the secret-binding is weak enough for you to write to your supervisor and ask for advice. Even if you can't tell him the whole story, he might have some insight on what this data means, or he might be able to give you some general information on chaotic energy patterns."

Eli took a breath. "You're right. I just wasn't expecting it to look like this. It threw me off. I need a new perspective or more data."

"What about these bits?" James pointed to three dips in the mess of dots.

"I'm worried about those." Eli frowned at the computer. "At first, I was like—yay—it seems like the veins calm down for a few minutes a day. It's some of the lowest the energy gets. But those times correspond to us collecting the recordings on the receipt paper."

"Why's that worrying?" Sebastian didn't get it.

"It means we're probably interfering somehow. Who knows if it's a real dip in energy or if it's us disrupting the magic we set up to measure the veins."

"Couldn't we be affecting the veins themselves rather than the spells on the mechanisms?" Sebastian stared at the dots. "Maybe something about us being there calms things. Maybe we can use that." As soon as he said it, he felt like he'd missed a step going down the stairs.

Parker leveled a stare at Sebastian. "You mean like trapping a person at the property to stop the imbalance from getting out of hand because their presence calms things?"

Sebastian's mouth went dry. "What? No. The fuel cell is taking care of that. Or else, how did James and I get out?" But they hadn't gotten out, not really. They were still stuck.

Maybe the fuel cell hadn't done anything they'd thought it had. Maybe it wasn't doing enough to stabilize the veins. Who knows if the energy had been this chaotic over the last six years while Sebastian had been trapped. Maybe it hadn't been. Without past measurements, there was no way to know.

But if that was the case, and not having a person at the property was causing problems, wouldn't things have exploded by now?

"The fuel cell is taking care of it. It has to be." Eli pointed to the computer. "This is chaos but doesn't look like explosive levels of chaos. The energy level needed to cause the kind of destruction you described, Sebastian, would be much higher than this. This would not blow up Moonlight Falls." Eli frowned at his graph for a minute. When he looked up, he seemed hesitant. "But if these dips aren't us interfering with the mechanisms, and it's us affecting the veins, then I wonder if it's not so much us but Sebastian influencing things."

Sebastian took a step back from the group. He didn't know why Eli thought that, but he didn't like it. His heart pounded like it was trying to leave his chest. He didn't want to be different. Didn't want to be set apart from everyone else. It was too close to being cast out.

This wasn't his fault.

"Hey." James gripped his shoulder. "It's okay. Even if you caused these dips, it doesn't change anything. We're still in this together."

It was like James had read his mind. Sebastian sagged in relief. James knew him, understood him, and cared about him so fiercely that he didn't mind dealing with any of this.

Sebastian wasn't going to be abandoned, no matter what they learned.

"Sorry, Sebastian. I didn't mean to imply anything bad." Eli's voice softened as he spoke. "I only think it's you, not everyone, because of what you said yesterday and because the time Parker and I collected the receipts without you, there's no dip." He pointed it out on the graph for everyone to see. "You said the veins had access to your magic and drained it before they started draining the fuel cell. What if that connection is still there? The dips could be showing us that you're still linked in a different way than the rest of us. Which we already suspected. "

True, that was nothing new. Sebastian knew that James's and the others' magic had never been affected, but he'd hoped that some of the hold the curse had allowed the veins to have over him had broken now that his magic was back. "You think the veins are still taking my energy?"

"If that's the case," James cut in before Eli could answer, "why would taking energy from Sebastian cause the veins' energy to dip lower? Shouldn't it be the opposite?"

"You're right. That's what I would have thought." Eli narrowed his eyes. "So then, does this mean Sebastian is taking energy from the veins?"

"But we just said taking energy isn't possible." James looked at Eli like he'd lost it.

"It's not possible. Normally." Eli ran another nervous hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "At least not without the secrets of modern magical power. But what if Sebastian and the veins are so tied together that it isn't really taking per se. What if it's more like they're one unit, sharing energy. It makes sense given the nature of the curse binding people and the veins together."

"Wait. You're saying that all this time, I could have taken energy from the veins?" Sebastian looked at Eli in disbelief. "Then why didn't my uncle or his predecessors do it? They could have been super powerful, done all kinds of amazing magic, not to mention cast spells to light up the whole dark, miserable house."

Eli put up a hand, stopping Sebastian's increasingly frustrated words. "I'm not saying it would be safe to take magic from the veins to cast spells. It probably wouldn't be. It could be as near-impossible to do in a controlled way as extracting energy for electricity is. I'm just saying in theory , I bet the connection goes both ways. There could be a natural flow between the two, but this is all conjecture."

James made a frustrated sound. "If it's true, does it even help us?"

Eli shrugged. "I'm not sure it does. Seeing the energy levels dip could be evidence of Sebastian's continued tie to the veins. A tie the fuel cell didn't break. And a tie I bet the fuel cell now has to the veins. To know for sure, we'd have to take turns going to the clearing alone and see what each of us does to the energy compared to Sebastian. See if every time Sebastian is around, we get a dip. We'd need to try and measure any changes in Sebastian's personal magic too. But I don't think getting a conclusive answer will get us any closer to solving this."

Everyone was quiet for a long moment. Sebastian felt faintly ill. There was an undeniable ring of truth in Eli's theory. Sebastian knew he was connected to this thing more so than the others. But there was no way he could draw power from the veins or be so fundamentally linked to them that they were one unit . The idea horrified him. He didn't want to believe it. It made him think he'd never escape this.

However, not wanting it to be true didn't mean the theory was wrong. He thought back to Eli's questions about how James had linked to him when doing the unbinding spell. If Sebastian had so little magical energy, where had the energy James had borrowed come from? Had James taken energy from the veins through Sebastian? He wanted to say no way. Sebastian had never been able to access extra power when he'd been too tired to conjure light, but if it was a natural flow between him and the veins, maybe James could have drawn on it through him just as he'd normally draw on any other person.

But if Eli was right, how would they ever untie Sebastian from the veins? Would solving the imbalance break a connection like that ?

James tapped the counter like he was deep in thought. "We need to figure out why adding the fuel cell expanded the boundary. It clearly changed something, and if it didn't untie Sebastian, we need to know what it did. Maybe that will help us find a solution." He glanced at Sebastian with the ghost of a smile. "Or we can try and find a way to keep expanding the boundary until it's essentially nonexistent. As long as the veins are stable enough to not cause problems, then we can consider this shit done."

Parker snorted.

Eli looked between them. "The boundary is a smart thing to look into while we continue collecting measurements from the vein intersection."

"Do you think connecting the fuel cell did anything to the veins in town?" Sebastian pointed to the laptop. "Maybe that will help us see what happened that day. If you were recording stuff then."

"I was." Eli turned back to his laptop and pulled up more graphs. "I haven't looked at any of the data from my setup in town since you two came back to town, but at least it's all imported automatically. It really is a pain that we can't use electronics at Storm House. I'm getting sick of copying off of receipt paper."

Eli studied the computer screen for a few minutes. James sipped his coffee. Sebastian had abandoned his. He still felt queasy.

"There's nothing from the night you connected the fuel cell. It all looks normal."

Sebastian's shoulders sagged. Damn.

"Wait—" Eli's brows shot up his forehead. "What night did you see that creepy shade activity in town, Sebastian?"

"Three nights ago."

"There was a huge spike of energy that night. I have a monitor set up near the stone. Holy shit. Maybe the shades were doing some sort of magic. This part of the vein has had a steady flow since I started studying it at the beginning of fall. No way a spike like this is a coincidence."

Parker leaned over Eli's shoulder. "Was there anything the night my house got attacked?"

"No." Eli scrolled through the information on the screen. "But if Hazel's theory is right, and the darkness surrounding the town and whatever happened at your house are the same, what if it all started with what Sebastian saw around the stone?"

"There were weird shadows that night too." Sebastian wasn't sure how well he'd explained that to everyone when first describing what he'd seen. "I thought they were just shades not in solid form, but what if it was more like the stuff that attacked Parker's house?"

"Could be." Parker nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "We need to figure out more about the darkness and what's going on with the shades. While it'd be great to solve the imbalance and free ourselves, that doesn't look like it's happening any time soon, and being stuck here is a lot more of a problem when we don't know what's going on or how dangerous it's going to get." Parker reached out and closed Eli's laptop. "If there was an energy spike in town when we think this all started, the veins must play a part in the darkness somehow."

"And not in a way that's necessarily connected to us being trapped or the curse or imbalance," Eli added. "What if that humanoid shade you saw is using the veins? We have no idea how intelligent shades do magic. They might have a better handle on vein power than humans do." Eli trailed off, looking lost in thought. "I want to look at the darkness boundary."

"Why?" Sebastian asked.

"I have a theory." Eli turned to Parker. "I'm going to get my portable meter and map. You're driving."

Parker smiled fondly. "You got it, gorgeous."

Eli rushed off down the hall toward his room.

Sebastian turned to the others. "But what's the theory? "

"Probably something to do with the veins being straight," James guessed. "But who knows."

Eli dragged Parker away with him, and James and Sebastian drove across town to Gray Electrical.

Sebastian hated that they were getting nowhere. Nothing they'd learned felt helpful. They didn't know why the veins on his property had a weird energy pattern. They didn't know what exactly the fuel cell had done when it was linked up to everything. Being trapped wasn't even their biggest problem.