“I know,” he answers. “That’s why you need to listen to me. I left my powers inside you so that—”
“You left your powers inside me? Why? How do I get them out?”
“I’ll accept them back from you eventually. I’m just loaning them to you for a while. You’re a conduit, remember? You channel magic, and I’ve given you mine to channel for now.”
“Loaning them to me?” I look at him like he’s got two heads. “What does that even mean?”
The smirk is back, but it’s coupled with a tenderness in his eyes that I can’t begin to understand. “It means I’m mortal right now.”
“What?” Horror explodes through me. “You said we couldn’t do that to you. You said it would ruin everything. We decided—”
“Don’t worry about what we decided. I know my parents. No way did they make this Trial something you can pass on your own. Remember, they were planning on you and Jaxon, so the Trial would have been close to impossible for the two of you. For you alone…” He shakes his head. “That’s why you don’t have a choice. You need to take my powers.”
“Yeah, but that leaves you vulnerable, right? I mean, if you’re mortal, doesn’t that mean they can hurt you, too?”
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about me. They’ve already done everything they can to me—especially my father.”
He doesn’t elaborate and I don’t ask—there isn’t time—but my heart dies a little bit with the acknowledgment of just how awful his life, and Jaxon’s, have been.
“Take them back,” I say, reaching for him. “If they find out you’re here, and you don’t have any powers—”
“They won’t find out,” he tells me, his British accept crisp with a combination of impatience and urgency. “Besides, you’re in much worse peril. Without a mate in there fighting with you, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Which is why I hid my powers deep inside you, so that the Council won’t know they’re there unless they search through all of your memories.”
Maybe it’s the whirlwind I just went through, but nothing he’s saying is making any sense to me right now. “But how? You can’t just drop things off in people’s memories.”
The look he gives me says that maybe I can’t, but he certainly can. But all he says is, “When all that magic you just did put me back together, I chose to leave them behind for you, in my favorite memory of yours. It’s the one when you were little and your parents were teaching you how to ride a bike. Remember? You fell off and skinned your knee, and your dad told you that it was okay. That you would try again tomorrow.”
I nod, because I do remember that memory. It’s one of my favorites, too, and I think about it every time I have something hard to do…and every time I miss my parents.
“My mom told him I could do it. She told us both I could do it.”
“Yeah, she did. And then she smiled at you and it was so full of love and so full of confidence—”
“That I picked up my bike, dusted the gravel off my knees, and rode all the way home by myself.”
“Yes, you did. And she ran along beside you the whole way, just in case.” His eyes are soft as he continues. “But you only needed her once.”
“Yeah, when I hit a rut in the sidewalk and started to wobble. She grabbed on to the back of my seat and held me steady for a few seconds until I could get control again.”
“That’s why I hid my powers in her smile. So you’d know that I believe in you, too. That I know you can do this. And while I can’t be on that field to catch you if you fall, that doesn’t mean I don’t have your back.”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that, what I’m supposed to say to him. This is the most selfless thing anyone has ever done for me, and I don’t know how to feel about it. “Hudson—”
“Not now,” he tells me. “You have to go. But remember, they’re there if you need them. Just be careful, because you don’t heal like I do, and you don’t have the same kind of physical strength to withstand the pressure of them. So you can only use them once or they’ll drain you completely. You’ll know when you need them. Only once, though.” He gives me a searching look. “Got it?”
Not even a little bit. I’m so mixed up inside right now that my brain feels like a box of confetti—lots of individual pieces in a confined space but nothing actually working together. I can’t say that, though, so instead I just nod. “Yeah. Got it.”