Chapter Fifteen—Aura of an Isekai

After her physical form dissolved, Jessamine found herself back inside her lamp. Normally this place was her home—her refuge. She could imagine her surroundings however she wished.

Now they were as uninviting as a cold and damp dungeon cell.

She screamed.

“SHIRO!”

Her face was hot, her cheeks wet and her eyes burning. Even now as she screamed he was in that alley dying of a powerful poison she did not know the likes of.

She ran around her rooms like a mad woman, throwing vases, pillows. She picked up a dish of succulent fruits and tossed them across the room.

None of it was real, of course. But Jessamine had to react somehow.

After a moment she took hold of herself, her chest heaving heavier than it had been before. Shiro was dying.

He’s dying!

Their link, as tenuous as it was, could only be established if her lamp was on his physical person, or very nearby.

Even so, she had to try!

Shiro…

She closed her eyes, wiping everything from her surroundings, everything turning black—back into the blank magical void that was the interior of her lamp.

Where are you, Shiro?

She searched, sending out attenuations in an attempt to find his tethers. There were none. She quested further.

Further still, searching frantically.

It was no use.

There’s nothing!

“Agh!”

But there was something.

What is that?

It appeared. Far off in the void, it gave off a subtle magical aura.

Could that be…?

It carried that scent, that uniqueness that was Shiro. It had the same vibrations as when she had first encountered it.

He was an isekai after all. Could it be that his aura was more voluminous than that of a normal individual?

Shiro, is that you?!

She drew upon her energies from the void with everything she had. All around her, her discordant and peripheral energies gathering.

The difficulty of summoning this much magic was enormous.

A thing she had never done before.

Everything!

I need everything!

Come!

With her palms facing upward and her fingers like claws, she drew all the magic she knew of within her space and summoned it into two bright white balls of energy.

Squinting and screaming just to hold this much energy in her own grasp, she hurled the two balls toward that tether.

The tether that was Shiro.

Jessamine’s body went limp, her eyes closing.

I pray to the gods that my magic finds you… Shir…o…