HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 77

Chapter Seventy Seven

You know that saying, a watched pot never boils?

Yeah, I was beginning to think magic was a little like that. I just didn't get it. I mean, sure, Yuma was doing an excellent job of teaching me how it worked, but I couldn't really wrap my head around the physics of it all and how it tied into reality and, if it was actually a thing, how humankind had never been able to measure or record it or catch surefire glimpses of it.

Or maybe they had but never knew?

It was frustrating, because no matter how many different ways the old buck tried to explain what glamour was and what arcana was and how the two were different, I couldn't actually tell those differences apart because I didn't have an understanding about what, exactly, they were. I didn't know what the energies consisted of and I definitely couldn't fathom how faeries managed to manipulate them using things like incantations or sheer willpower. It felt, to me, like it went beyond the realm of science and straight into the spiritual, which was out of my range of understanding. Despite being a potentially immortal werewolf hybrid, I was a skeptic.

Vampires? Hell yeah, I was dating one and best friends with another.

Werewolves? My whole family consisted of them.

Faeries? Awesome, they were everywhere.

Mermaids, sirens, banshees, nereids, centaurs, nymphs, and satyrs? Yep! I'd met all of the above!

Ghosts...?

Well, that one was harder, despite what I knew. Genie dragons like Feng-Feng, her husband Anurak, and all four of their sons could suck a person's soul right out of their body and eat it, leaving behind nothing but a living shell--basically reducing the victim to an empty, mindless vegetable. They also claimed to be capable of drawing the souls of the deceased into their bodies not for devouring purposes but for protection purposes. I'd learned as much from Anurak, who'd claimed to have held onto the soul of Aerin's biological father after his death.

However, despite this, I was hesitant to believe that everything was as they'd said. I didn't think they were liars, and it was very clear that they could indeed bestow their bizarre wish-granting magic on people, which could pretty much rip the universe apart and alter reality if used the wrong way... but as for sucking a person's soul out?

Uh-uh. There had to be another explanation. Paralytic magic, perhaps, or a curse caused by their unique brand of abilities, but soul sucking? Ghosts?

I'd asked around a few years ago and not even creatures who'd lived for thousands of years knew the answer to my questions. It had been chalked up to them being magic, but now?

Well, honestly, I was in a pickle because I didn't know how to wrap my head around the concept of magic, the same way I couldn't wrap my head around the thought of my loved ones dying and becoming spirits. I didn't know how to because it just didn't make any sense.

I could only theorize.

And yet, I sat with Yuma for a long time, conjuring magic flashes and listening to him talk about glamour and its nature and what needed to happen to use it, but honestly my mind just kept wandering to other things that would be happening soon. I was worried about Echo and I didn't want to leave him behind when I headed back home, not after coming into direct contact with the weird shadowy presence that kept popping up. I still had no idea what it was.

No, the thought of leaving him just rubbed me the wrong way.

After a time, Yuma noticed that my focus was elsewhere and stopped his lecture.