“The roots,” Kasey breathes. “The Tree draws magic through its roots. Have you seen them, Jamie?”

“Only the parts that grow above ground, which isn’t the full picture, but - it just makes sense. That’s where it draws in water, nutrients - everything it needs to stay alive, besides sunlight and carbon dioxide. And this shape kind of looks like a root system, only from overhead.”

There’s a silence, and then, in an unplanned but well-coordinated movement, we all turn to face Will. He blinks his green eyes at us, then looks to Kasey, bewildered.

“We want your opinion,” she explains.

“My opinion?” Will pales, growing more transparent, his form flickering. “Oh, well, I - appreciate that, but-”

He closes his eyes, having some kind of internal struggle, and then - vanishes, without another word.

“Oops.” Kasey winces, sitting back on her ankles. “Too much attention on Will at once. Shit. It’s probably gonna take him a while to come back.”

“We shouldn’t go on without him,” Aiden says. “Right?”

“Right.” Kasey’s shoulders droop, her gaze lingering on the place where Will disappeared. “I guess he got overwhelmed. Bet you it’s been a good long time since anyone asked for his opinion on anything.”

I tip my head to the side, watching Kasey. Based on her expression, I think she misses Will already.

“He’ll be okay, Kase-face. He did great tonight, honestly, he talked to us, stayed a while…”

Kasey nods, then gets to her feet.

“I know, but - I’m gonna go to Benton Street. Wait for him. I actually think it’s easier for him to come back when I’m nearby.”

She sounds distant. Her thoughts are already on Benton Street, already with Will.

“Okay,” I answer. “Hey, we made some progress tonight, though! We’ve got the boundaries outlined, and we know why they look like that.”

“True.” Aiden climbs back to his feet, dusting his hands off. “But - does this help us build the battery, really?”

Kasey comes back to the present for a moment, her eyes lifting to Aiden.

“Yeah, it does. The first step to making anything work is to just - understand it.” She looks down at the drawing again, and I can practically hear the gears turning in her head. “I don’t know how this will help, not yet, but… trust me. It will.”

~~~~

After Kasey disappears, Aiden and I close down the Ghost Office, get our jackets back on, and lock up.

So I assume that we’re headed to my car, but Aiden pauses right outside of the Ghost Office door, his blue gaze roaming out over the river, the trees, the expanse of night sky.

The storm clouds haven’t quite made it to us yet, and scattered stars are visible in every direction, as far as I can see, until they’re lost behind the ridges of the distant mountains. The mountains are always snow-capped, but now they each bear a glittering sheet of white that extends at least halfway down every slope.

Moonlight falls through the pine trees, haloing everything with a pale, frosty glow.

Aiden and I stand there together, looking, our breaths turning to mist on the cold air, our hands in the pockets of our jackets.

The hush is absolute. No wind to speak of, not the slightest rustle of leaves. The river is slushy, only half frozen, but the current is slow and calm tonight. It barely makes a sound, the faintest whisper.

My breath slows down, grows deeper. I hold very still.

Aiden does, too. Quiet on the outside helps him find some sort of quiet on the inside, and - it's quiet here.

He makes no move towards my car.

He pulls his hand out of his pocket, and I automatically do the same, reach for him. Our fingers find each other, though we don’t break our eyes away from the sprawling night sky.

“Jamie,” Aiden murmurs.

Something in his voice makes me turn my head, look at him with a question in my eyes.

He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment before he speaks again. “Ariana made the conduits.”

Aiden’s volume hasn’t risen at all, and the cadence of his voice hasn’t changed. But I'm listening closely, and this time, I understand what I'm hearing. A thread of deeply-felt sadness, wound through his words.

It’s showing on his face, too. Swimming in the depths of his blue eyes.

What he said isn’t exactly a clear explanation for the sudden mood swing. But I’m his Companion Plant, so it’s enough for me to figure it out.

I remember how Aiden reacted when we first realized the scope and scale of what Ariana accomplished with her powers. It made him feel inadequate, angry with his mom for failing to mentor him. It made everything that he’s achieved feel small by comparison.

My heart twists painfully when I think about what Aiden said that night.

Ariana could do all this, and she looked down her family line, and saw me. The worst out of everyone, who can barely do anything. I know I’d be disappointed.

With the help of Ariana’s letter, I managed to get Aiden through it. But now we’ve learned that even the conduits were her creation.

Aiden is obviously struggling with it again.

He doesn’t sound pissed off this time, though. Maybe this is too peaceful of a place, too peaceful of a moment for his anger to overtake him.

I step closer to Aiden, rest my head against his shoulder. A silence passes as I try to think of what to say, and we both gaze out at the water.

Our nearest neighbors are a long way off, but clearly not at home. No one would stay this late in a drafty place on the river, not when it’s this cold out. Now that the Ghost Office is closed down for the night, there are no lights along the banks.

We only have light from the moon and stars to see by, but that’s enough. The foggy glow hangs over everything.

“Aiden,” I say softly, “Don’t measure yourself against Ariana. Measure yourself from within. Think of everything you can do now, that you couldn’t do when you first came back to Ketterbridge. And I know that you’re capable of doing more, too. So much more.” I lift our intertwined hands to my mouth, press a kiss onto his knuckles. “We can do so much more. Together.”

Aiden looks down at me, the snowy light reflecting in his eyes. My heart stumbles, and maybe this isn’t the moment, but - I roll up onto my toes, offer him my mouth.

He bends to brush a kiss onto my lips. Drops my fingers, and lifts his hand to gently cradle the back of my neck.

When I fall back onto my feet, I wind an arm around Aiden, snuggling up close to him.

“At least I can keep you warm,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss to my temple. “At least there’s that.”

“You’re Ariana’s legacy,” I tell him. “And she was proud of you. She told you so. What did she say in her letter? It’s fitting that you would turn out to be a Heliomancer, because-?”

“That you should be a worker of sun-given gifts is entirely fitting, for the sun is the brightest invention of Nature,” Aiden says, without missing a beat.

I blink up at him, one eyebrow arched. He shrugs, a slight blush in his cheeks.

“I’ve - read it a lot of times. Pretty much know it by heart, at this point.”

A smile sparks on my face, and I give Aiden’s jacket a tug. “Keep going.”

Aiden manages a small smile of his own. He hesitates, then continues, his deep voice drifting out into the night.

“You have brought light to what was once the darkest place in my heart. I have walked on air and water with the help of heat, and now, I will walk into what comes next with my heart full.”

I’m about to say something like - see? She knew how incredible you would be, Aiden.

But instead, I stay silent, watching his face. Something is moving in his blue gaze. He’s looking out at the river, his eyes narrowed with thought, with curiosity.

“I have walked on air and water,” he repeats slowly, “With the help of heat.”

He takes a step towards the river. Then another. He breaks into a full stride, heading directly for the water, and sheds his jacket on the way.

I follow after him, holding my breath.

Aiden stops at the water's edge and gets busy unlacing his Timbs. I stand behind him, hugging myself against the cold, watching.

Aiden kicks off his boots. They land on the snowy pebbles with a muffled thud.

He turns, and holds out his hand to me.

I take Aiden’s fingers, close my eyes, and let my barriers drop away. The connection shivers to life between us. Aiden’s heat and energy spills into me, climbing up my arm, then running down my spine, then flooding me completely.

We haven’t used the connection in a minute, and I almost forgot just how fucking good it feels. My toes curl in my Converse, and I shudder.

Aiden is experiencing the same thing. I’m breathing with his breath, feeling with his body, so I know it without looking at him. But I do, anyways.

He’s already looking down at me, and I share in the burst of feeling that rushes through him when our eyes meet. An inner fire starts to burn in him, so meteoric and powerful that it physically shows up - in heat, in a flash of white-blue fire in his eyes, in his mouth suddenly on mine. I close my eyes again, kiss him back, drink him in.

It’s a long moment before we break apart.

When Aiden pulls back, he turns to look out at the river. His fingers tighten their grip on mine, and through the connection, I sense him concentrating. Summoning heat, playing with the movement of air, current, temperature. Experimenting, even though he’s holding perfectly still.

Very slowly, he lifts a foot into the air, out over the river’s surface. Then he leans into it, like he’s about to take a step.

His foot doesn’t come close to touching the water, but seems to find ground on something invisible.

My breath catches in my throat, and my free hand flies over my mouth.

Aiden lifts his other foot off the riverbank, and takes another step onto nothing.

He stands just above the water, white-blue light shining in his eyes, one hand held out for balance. The melty ice dissolves beneath his feet, leaving only glassy water behind.

A few snowflakes start to drift down from the sky. They burn up on the heat surrounding Aiden, and kiss the water’s surface everywhere else.

I stare up at him, dumbstruck, my mouth dropped open. Aiden is concentrating, but he looks at me, and we both let out an amazed laugh.

Aiden gives my hands a gentle tug. I shake my head, realizing what he intends.

No, I can’t, I say, through the connection.

I’ve got you. Come on, Keane. I won’t let you fall.

I hesitate, but - I trust Aiden. If he says he can do this…

I put my foot about even with his, and experience the curious sensation of stepping directly onto nothing.

The only thing I feel through the bottoms of my Converse is a faint, pleasant warmth, and yet - I’m on solid footing. It makes my whole body feel lighter. I’m balancing on air.

I look up at Aiden, dazed, and he laughs again. He releases one of my hands, then takes a step backwards, drawing me away from the riverbank.

With every step onto nothing, my stomach drops like we’re both about to fall. But we don’t. Aiden keeps going until we’re standing in the very middle of the river. We leave nothing but a trail of melted ice in our wake, and steam on the water’s surface.

The snowflakes start falling faster and faster, but they don’t land on us. They shower down all around us, a fluttering, glittering curtain.

We stand there, hand in hand. Turning slowly, gazing out at the snow, at the water beneath our feet.

Aiden catches my eye, breaking into a grin. He takes a step forward, and we start walking down the river like we’re walking down the street.

Aiden laughs again, picking up speed. I’m laughing, too, disbelieving - and Aiden takes off running, pulling me with him.

We race together down the river, both of us laughing and yelling wildly, our feet not making a single splash. The snow burns up ahead of us, turning to white smoke that disappears before it can touch us.

Our joy is mingling through the connection, and I’m feeling everything twice as brightly and brilliantly as I knew myself capable of.

Aiden throws his head back as we run, turns his face up to the sky, his breathless laughter ringing in my ears. This is that laugh, the rarest kind from Aiden. Free, weightless, coming right from his heart.

Something bright catches my eye. I glance over my shoulder and discover that we’re leaving a trail of soft golden light in our wake.

I suspect that the light has everything to do with that laughter coming from Aiden, right now.

I slow down, and he slows with me. We come to a stop, standing on the river’s surface. Giddy and windblown, wheezing. My nose aches from being scrunched up with laughter. It takes me a moment to get my breath back.

When I manage to look at Aiden, he’s staring at me, his eyes large and fiery, dark blue in the half-light.

I blush beneath his gaze. Aiden notices, and through the connection, I feel his heart stutter.

His focus slips. The invisible ground seems to vanish beneath our feet. Our hands break apart, and the connection with it. Before I can even process what happened, the water closes over my head.

I expect this to be the second ice bath I’ve undergone this week, but I should have known better. I’m with a Heliomancer, after all. The half-frozen river feels like tropical waters, at least around me.

I surface, gasping, and toss my hair out of my face. Aiden pops up next to me, his eyes wide and startled, his clothes clinging to his body.

I splash him, indignant. “You did let me fall, you idiot!”

Aiden grins, slicks his soaked chestnut hair back, and reaches for me.

He pulls me out of the water, and we walk on air all the way back to the Ghost Office, where we touch down on land.

We’re both silent, stunned. We walk towards the car in mute amazement, Aiden stumbling back into his Timbs on the way.

“Holy shit!” he sputters, out of nowhere. “I can’t - I can’t fucking believe-”

I smile at him, squeezing his hand. “Didn’t I say you’re gonna do great things?”

Aiden laughs again, that bright, dazed laughter, possibly the best sound in the world.

“Man,” he says excitedly, “I know I just used up a ton of magical energy, but I don’t even feel tired. I feel so fucking awake, right n-”

Aiden breaks off sharply, his blue gaze fixed on my face. A realization sparks in his eyes.

His breath catches, and he curls a hand around the back of my neck. The heat he’s putting off increases dramatically. His clothes actually begin to steam very slightly, burning off the water.

“Let’s go to your place,” he says.

My heart leaps up into my mouth.

“My place,” I repeat.

Aiden puts his fingers to the side of my face, stroking me slowly. He trails them down the curve of my neck, and they find the edge of my soaking shirt. He gets his fingertips beneath and pulls it aside.

He suddenly buries his face into my collar, kissing and chewing my neck and the exposed slope of my shoulder, wrapping his arms around me, backing me up towards my car. The heat of his breath against my skin throws flames through my entire body.

Aiden presses me up against the car, all wet fabric and smooth muscle and hands stealing through my clothes.

“Your place,” he says urgently, his voice muffled against my throat. “Jamie. Your place.”

I don’t answer.

Partially because I’ve forgotten every word in the dictionary. Partially because I’m too busy trying to find my keys.