I pointed at a red button. “Like that one?”

If we weren’t about to die, he might’ve laughed. All I saw were his merrily narrowed eyes, the slight uptick of the corners of his mouth . . . a barely there smile some people might not even notice. Not me. I lived for that smile—my smile—and when I saw it, I relaxed. Just a little. Everything would be fine. This was just a crazy story Jupe could tell his Earthbound friends at school.

Raindrops crested over Lon’s high cheekbones and dipped into the deep hollows of his cheeks

. I pressed my hand against his face—

Then the bridge exploded.

It sounded like war. Like a pipe bomb. A building being demolished.

Blinding white light obliterated my sight for an extended moment. I was floating. Lifted out of my body, passing up through the veil and crossing over to the Æthyr.

Or heaven. Hell. God only knew.

Seconds—minutes?—later, when I realized I was still on earth, I couldn’t move. The white light was gone. I felt rain driving down on my face. Could see part of the bridge, the canvas canopy . . . and the enormous smoldering hole in the middle of it.

The scent of burnt plastic and smoke revived me. I gasped for breath, willing my lungs back to life, then coughed up rainwater.

My feet felt like they were on fire. Smoke unfurled in wisps from my lowtop sneakers. I sat up and tugged one off by the heel: the rubber sole was a black, melted, stringy mess. Yelping, I tossed it away, then immediately jerked off the other shoe and both socks. Was someone yelling? Hard to tell under the storm’s cacophony. Where was—?

Lon. Thank God.

He lay on the bridge next to me, groaning like he’d been socked in the stomach. His jacket and jeans were smoking. I shouted his name and pushed myself up. My hands patted him down, making sure nothing was hurt or on fire.

His eyes flew open when I touched his face. “Oww! Fuck! Your fingers are hot.”

I snatched them away. My skin looked a little pinker than its usual dead-white bartender pallor. I sniffed. Burnt hair. “Boat got hit by lightning,” I explained.

“We’re not dead?”

Anyone else probably would be. As a magician, I had a preternatural capacity for holding more electrical current than the average human. Or demon. I frequently siphoned electricity into it my body and used it to “kindle” my natural magical energy—Heka—for charging spells: electricity flowing inside walls, car batteries, generators, power plants . . .

And lightning.

Not that I was indestructible. I’m quite certain electricity could kill me, though it would likely fry my brain long before I kicked the bucket. And it sure as hell could harm Lon, and as he sat up on the bridge, I wondered just how in the world he’d survived.

“I was touching you,” I said. “I must’ve taken the force of the strike. I—”

A furious gale of wind rushed over the bridge, tilting the boat. I grabbed the railing to keep from sliding across the deck. When the rocking lessened, we both climbed to our feet. My lungs ached. Skin tingled. Hands were shaking. Like I sometimes felt after kindling a big spell. At least I wasn’t in the grips of post-magick nausea. The unsteady boat was already churning my stomach hard enough to make me dizzy.

“Fire.”

I looked up. “What?”

“Fire!”

My gaze shot to the polished teak dash behind the steering wheel, where flames danced wildly, playing tug-of-war with the rain dripping from the singed Bimini canopy. Lon ripped his jacket off and swatted it against the fire. The wet fabric smothered the flames, but the damage was already done.

Blackened, the whole dash. Glass cracked. Wood splintered.

VHF emergency radio melted.

Lon tried to grab the handset, but it was too hot to touch. He rubbed his fingers, breathing heavy as he surveyed the damage on the console, the hole in the Bimini canopy, a massive black spot on the deck where we’d been standing during the strike . . . my discarded shoes. “What the hell?”

“Don’t know where the lightning entered me, but it exited through my feet. My skin still hot?”

“Warm,” he said upon touching my hand. “But you were hot enough to burn me before. Jesusfuckingchrist, Cady. You’ve never felt that way after kindling Heka. You sure you’re all right?”

I nodded vigorously to convince myself as much as him. He crushed me against his rain-soaked chest and kissed me firmly on my temple. I could tell how scared he was by how hard he was holding me. That only increased my worry, so I pushed away and turned my attention to the bigger problem—the what the hell were we going to do now issue. If the controls were fried, and we couldn’t contact the Coast Guard, then . . .

Holy whore of Babylon, it was dark. Like night. And despite the raging storm, the seesawing boat was quiet. No humming below my feet. As in no engine.

Lights on the bridge were dark. So were the ones embedded in the stairs.

All lights were out . . . including the glowing Heka that had lit up the Æthyric seal in the center of the bridge.

The protective ward was down.

I grre rkeley"ipped the rail as my eyes met Lon’s.

Jupe.

I glanced down at my hand. The bond Jupe and I shared through magick had, in the past, created a glowing thread of Heka that appeared when the kid was in danger. It wasn’t there at the moment. Hopefully that particular magick was still reliable enough for me to assume he was safe. But it didn’t matter, because Lon was already in protective-father mode.