It takes some serious magic to stop a building from collapsing. Well, not stop, but keep it standing for long enough that everybody can get out. I’d love to say that I did a lot of heavy-lifting—and I did—but Nightingale bore the brunt of it. Lucky for us and our brains we’d had the support of a great number of Weyland staves but even so I thought that I was rapidly approaching the end of what I could do safely before risking a stroke. The doctors Walid and Vaughn were already hovering in the periphery, probably considering dragging us away for our own good, when we could finally let the spells go.
We did it with a lot of care though—the Folly’s reputation is bad enough already when it comes to property damage. If we’re gonna let a building collapse then it’s gotta be gentle so that there’s no shockwave taking out the windows of surrounding buildings.
The moment I stopped the formae I’d been keeping up, I felt myself swaying, though it felt more from the exhaustion of the day than any brain damage. Or so I told myself. One look at Abdul told me that I’d be for the MRI anyway.
I opened my eyes again, though I couldn’t remember when I’d closed them, and looked at Nightingale. I’ve never seen him approach his limits before; when I asked him how long he could keep up his pocket version of the sun just after I became his apprentice, he’d laughed. He still stood a bit ahead of me as he’d been before; a staff in each hand—Danni had been handing us new ones. He looked like he was in a trance and I had an inkling that I’d been the same just a moment before. Finally he was done too and a light cloud of dust trailed from the building as everything settled. The last… however long it had actually been—I had no idea—had been marked by the familiar rhythm of his signare, like a clockwork steadily ticking away, dependable. Now it was quiet.
‘Thomas?’ Abdul said gently and walked up to him. ‘Can you hear me?’
Nightingale turned around slowly, his eyes closed. ‘Sir—’ I started to say but then Nightingale opened his eyes. I couldn’t help wondering how this could be—physically it made no sense—before the worry slammed into me full force. I’ve read a lot of books about magic and practitioners and also what can go wrong with magic. And I’ve had lectures on the latter by Nightingale, Postmartin and Abdul, repeatedly. And by David Mellenby’s notes. None of the reputable ones had mentioned this.
When Nightingale opened his eyes, they were glowing silver. Like tiny werelights were in them, though that would have annihilated his retinas if it were true. But he wasn’t doing magic anymore, I could feel it. And despite not making any sense, it was definitely happening.
‘What—’ Nightingale said and swayed so alarmingly that I forgot my own fatigue to rush forward. Not a moment too soon: Abdul had grabbed him by the shoulders but Nightingale was already falling over.
The drawing of Nightingale's eyes was greatly inspired by how @spacecapart draws him (very helpful for somebody hates drawing human faces ^^)! Thank you @cypresstrees for betaing! This idea keeps haunting me aka what if your eyes start to glow when you do a lot of powerful magic?
