For part 4 of this little series, I’ve chosen a snippet that I was loath to remove. In the previous edit, this was a moment for Ryllis, a character originally at odds with my MC, to show that she has officially left behind her earlier nastiness after several awkward half-attempts at apologies throughout. She’s still her prickly, socially awkward self in this scene, but after her declarations of not trying to make friends anymore earlier in the novel, this scene shows she’s finally changed her mind.

This scene was also an opportunity to observe the effects of a dangerous spell used against many of the student body in the previous chapters. Now, she remains an arm’s-length away from those immediate effects, but in the new edit, Ryllis isn’t actually available for this scene, so it had to be rewritten without her.

Taking Ryllis out of the action in this part of the book, helps set up the end of the book as well as the plot that will carry over to book two. So it’s an important change, but one I hated to make anyway.

“Fire comes from friction, too.”

Ryllis’s voice was small and emotionless, but determined as she slowly made her way across the room to sit across from Willow on her bed. She must have been watching them for some time, because she already knew exactly what they were doing. Without waiting to be asked, she reached for Willow’s hand, taking it in her own and splaying it out between them. She closed her eyes, concentrating hard and Willow took the quiet moment to look her over.

Her skin had a sickly pallor to it that hadn’t been there prior to the lockdown, and there were dark bags under eyes. Her voice had been the same, more strained than normal and raw like she’d been screaming. Even her hair seemed to have lost some of its life, her braids looking frizzy and lackluster. Willow noted that the one was particularly matted from being worried constantly. It must have been the one she saw her running her fingers over. She looked and sounded like she was recovering from a deadly illness.

After a few moments, Willow felt the connection Ryllis made to chaos magic through her own hand, could feel the way she manipulated the air, and after another moment, she snatched her hand back with a gasp as static electricity snapped at her fingertips.

“Ow!” she complained loudly, frowning at Ryllis.

The emotionless expression on Ryllis’s face did not change. “Did you feel it?” she asked, ignoring Willow’s protest.

Willow’s mouth opened in indignation. “You shocked me! Of course, I felt it!”

Ryllis let out a heavy breath, and if she weren’t so exhausted, Willow was sure she would have rolled her eyes. “Not that. What came before it.”

Still rubbing at the ghost feeling of shock on her hand, Willow tried to focus on the moment just before that. She’d felt Ryllis tap into chaos magic, and then, what? There had just been a shock. What more was she meant to notice? She focused more intensely on the moment just before she felt that shock. It had been a swift build up, and, when the shock came, there was a release, but not exactly the same as the release when fire erupted. It was swifter, expending all of its energy at once without lingering. It wasn’t hungry like fire. Here and gone in an instant.

Ryllis was watching her face closely and nodded when understanding dawned across Willow’s face. “And after? What was different?”

Frowning, Willow wished for a moment Ryllis would just give her the answer, but nonetheless tried to puzzle it out herself. What was different? Fire consumed, uncaring the destruction it wrought in its pursuit of growth, but static, at first, didn’t seem to have any aim at all. It was so quick, what affect could it have on the real world?

Then she thought again, of that day on the homestead. Everything had been building up inside her until it was unbearable. The lightning strike had been a release, sudden and terrifying, but afterward, she had felt lighter. Confused and exhausted, because her power was uncontrolled, but lighter still. Unburdened. Like the scales had been tipped back, even if only slightly.

“It relieves tension?” she ventured at last.

Ryllis nodded.

“It restores balance,” Sage added, looking herself like she’d just had an epiphany. “When dry air becomes too charged, the static shock restores balance.”