don't leave me here alone; cordis

[Cordis]

In truth, she has not plumbed the depths of her power. She is content enough to wield lightning, to exist for days or weeks without eating or sleeping, if necessary, but she does so little else with it. She is not like those grandiose magicians, making deals, performing tricks. Power does not tempt her, not in the traditional sense. It doesn’t matter, anyway – her power couldn’t bring Spyndle back, not a second time. She could not remake that pile of bones on the riverside into the body she’d so cherished, her magic had been as worthless as her screams of grief. She watches the girl’s eyes flutter closed. She watches her. The resemblance is muted, muddied by generations and other bloodlines, but she can still see it so well, picking out those echoes of Spyndle that are etched in her body. Glassheart asks the question, then: do you think that you could see what she shows me? Cordis fears the answer. Her magic still feels like a failure, unable to do what she’d needed most (it had not saved her from Him, it had not saved Perse, it had not saved Spyndle a second time). She is scared to test it. But this isn’t life or death. (Though it might feel like she’s dying.) She is not skilled at this, touching their minds. She aches enough in her own mind, has had no desire to touch others’. It’s invasive, and strange, and she can barely hold on to her own thoughts, much else to someone elses’. But she has been asked, and, for this girl, she might do it. “Perhaps…” she says, faint, and even as she says it she tries. She touches her – it seems easier, that way – nose to her crest, a spark of painless lightning between them, jumping from her body onto Glassheart, like a newly created synapse. She does not prod into her, but when she closes her eyes she feels a strange doubling, feels a ghost-pressure of her nose against Glassheart’s neck, the toucher and touched all at once. I’m here, she thinks, show me. c o r d i s I’ll touch you all and make damn sure that no one touches me