Theo stood in front of the attic door, hand raised above the knob. But he didn't touch it yet.
Stupid of him. This was as much a part of his house as his own room; he didn't need anyone's permission to go in. And Dad was off working, so he wouldn't be around to ask uncomfortable questions.
Yet Theo still couldn't shake the feeling that he was intruding. No one had ever told him he wasn't allowed in here. He just knew, from Dad's and Victor's silences, that this room was like everything else involving his mother – an unspoken secret that could never be touched directly, only tiptoed around.
Theo's heart clenched into a tight fist. He drew in a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead. No letting these stupid hangups stop him. He needed to find out more about this crystal. If not for his own sake, then his friends'.
Once again, his hand drifted to his pocket. When his fingers brushed the crystal, a little spark leaped through his Levia.
He couldn't explain it exactly, but just carrying around the crystal made his Levia feel closer to his reach, as if it was humming beneath his skin instead of hidden in the core of his body. But he didn't feel all that much stronger; he certainly couldn't imagine himself forming contracts with dozens of familiars.
He could stand here wondering about it forever, or he could actually get something accomplished. Swallowing, Theo rested on his hand on the knob. Then he twisted, hard.
With a faint creak, the door swung open. His heartbeat hammering in his ears, he stepped inside.
Half the attic was used for storage, crammed with cardboard boxes brimming with all sorts of odds and ends. Theo wove carefully around the boxes, ducking beneath strings of broken Christmas lights and dodging old brooms. It didn't take long to reach the curtain dividing the attic in half.
His fingers trembled as he reached for the curtain. Gritting his teeth, Theo gripped his wrist to keep it steady before yanking the curtain open.
As he squeezed his way inside, dust stirred beneath his feet, swirling in lazy drifts that gleamed gold in the morning sunlight. Theo staggered back, coughing, but it didn't take long for the dust to settle.
Though a thin layer covered every surface inside the studio, there was less of it than he'd expected. Certainly a lot less than if this room had remained untouched for fourteen years. A painful lump swelled in his throat. Dad must have….
The thought made him uncomfortable. It was hard to imagine his cold, distant father showing any kind of sentiment for anyone...but he must've loved Mom, right?
The lump hardened, making his breaths burn. He stepped forward.
Light spilled beneath the heavy curtain over the window, painting a bright stripe across the otherwise dark floor. An easel stood in the center, facing the window. Just like the last time Theo had been in here all those years ago. But this time, the tarp fully covered the canvas on the easel.
As he approached the easel, his fingers twitched. He quickly drew his hand back. Wasn't like he needed to look at Mom's last painting; he'd gotten a decent glimpse last time. A wash of sky and sea, a half-formed cottage. That was all she'd gotten done before she'd had to go to the hospital for the last time.
A few uncovered canvases rested against the walls. Some were blank, but others displayed Mom's signature delicate watercolors. Lilies on a lake. A round gate opening into an Asian garden. He didn't know if age had faded the paint, or if they'd always been this pale and ephemeral. As if they might disappear if he looked away for too long.
From what Theo had managed to piece together, it seemed Eva Ling had been an accomplished artist, regularly selling her paintings to collectors and galleries. He also had the vague sense she might have been the one to teach Victor cello.
But she'd always been weak and sickly, finally succumbing to heart failure when Theo was two years old. Leaving behind only this studio, and a strange shard of blue crystal.
And maybe the dreams of Fortresses. And maybe his Levia.
Taking slow, careful steps, Theo crossed the studio. He left the easel alone, focusing instead on the desk tucked along the wall. With every step, his heart pounded harder.
A painting stood in his way; Theo carefully nudged it aside. As his fingers brushed the canvas, his gaze drifted across the cherry blossoms blowing in the wind. Something inexplicable and painful gripped his chest, making the corners of his eyes sting.
'What the hell? Cut it out!' Furious, he shook his head to clear it. What was the point of missing someone he didn't even remember? Someone he'd never known, and never would know?
But when he looked at these paintings, he felt closer to her than he ever had. Just like her, he'd become an artist too. Though not half as talented.
It took a few deep breaths before Theo finally calmed himself. His head still ached like he was going to cry, but at least no tears came out. Maybe he'd also felt this way the first time he'd gone in here. Maybe that was why he had never returned.
Finally, Theo reached the desk. Watercolor boards were scattered atop it, along with a palette crusted with long-dried paint. But Theo was more interested in what was inside.
As his gaze dropped to the drawers, his Levia gave an urgent pulse. Or was it the crystal's Levia? He couldn't tell. Not before it came again, thrumming so powerfully it scraped his bones.
Theo gasped. Blindly, he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the crystal shard. It might have been his imagination, but he thought the lights glinting inside it like stars seemed brighter than before.
All at once, he knew exactly where its companion was. Barely daring to breathe, he tugged the middle drawer open.
The paint tubes and brushes inside rattled. But Theo's eyes swept past them and toward the point of blue light glowing in the very back of the drawer.
The breaths hissed in his throat. Icy sweat slicked the back of his neck. And above all, he felt the Levia throbbing inside his chest like a second heartbeat, following the exact rhythm of the Levia pulsing from the crystal in his hand.
With trembling fingers, Theo reached for the light. His hand closed around crystal, solid and cool.
The instant it did, his Levia throbbed so hard he almost fell to his knees. The attic swirled around him and Theo squeezed his eyes shut, tasting dust on every breath.
When the spinning stopped, he cracked his eyes open. Slowly, his fingers uncurled around the stone in his hand.
It was no longer glowing, but he still sensed the power deep in its core. Otherwise, it looked exactly like the shard in his other hand. Dark blue, twinkling with stars. A tiny piece of sky captured in stone.
Theo held up both crystals to examine them more closely. The one from the drawer seemed about twice the size as the one from the Enson ring. They both had rough, jagged edges filled with deep grooves and jutting bits like rugged terrain.
As Theo turned them over in his hands, he couldn't take his eyes off either stone's longest edge. Bringing them closer together, he saw he wasn't imagining things. That little spike on this crystal fit perfectly into a dip on the other one. And it wasn't the only one.
'No way. What are the chances?' But Theo couldn't stop his hands. The two shards met with a little clack. He twisted his hands, and just like that, their pits and grooves locked together seamlessly.
Theo stared, and stared. His eyes weren't deceiving him. The two shards fit together as if they'd never been separated at all. He could barely even make out the edge where they joined.
Something was rising inside him like a tidal wave, crushing everything in its wake. Bones, muscles, Levia. His own power, or the crystals', he didn't know. Every instinct screamed at him to let go, to pull the crystals apart, but his hands were frozen in place.
He could feel the power throbbing inside the crystals again – harder, stronger. Swelling like a reactor about to burst. And it was all gathering at that jagged edge, pooling in the places where one crystal touched the other.
Finally, some of it trickled across the solid stone. Like a leak in a damn. Tiny, almost insignificant. But the instant it happened, it changed everything.
The crystals thrummed beneath Theo's hands like an engine. He let go, crying out. Rather than fall, the crystals kept floating in the air, emitting a blue glow so powerful it washed away every trace of sunlight.
With the light came violent, wracking waves of Levia, driving him back. Theo flung his arms before his face, but he couldn't ward off that terrible power. It swallowed his entire being just like Darian's Levia, only a thousand times more intense.
Body, mind, memories – he no longer had any of these. He was nothing but a ripple of dawn light beneath this unrelenting tide.
The power swelled to a crescendo, roaring as if in triumph. Or fury. Then, all of a sudden he heard a tiny clatter.
Just like that, the waves of power swept away. Gasping for breath, Theo cracked his eyes open. He had fallen on his knees, the hard floorboards digging through his jeans.
And in front of him...something on the floor glinted blue. Heart throbbing, Theo reached for it.
His fingers brushed cool crystal. A shock crackled through his Levia, like static electricity, and left behind an odd tingling sensation. Trying to ignore it, Theo picked up the crystal.
Just one crystal. The two shards had fused together, forming a larger, roughly triangular crystal about two thirds the length of his pinky. He turned it back and forth, squinting, but try as he might he couldn't find a trace of a seam.
The wide end of the triangle, however, remained rough and unfinished. Theo's breath caught. Could it be?
Were there other pieces?