Magic at the Gate by Devon Monk

stood in deep meditation, eyes closed, hands held low, palms up as if he were receiving, not giving away all of his magic. A glyph on the floor pulsed beneath his feet in rhythm to his heartbeat. The chains around his neck, waist, wrists, and feet anchored into the glyph and were made of the same blue-white substance of the walls.
    How could I wake him, free him? The black flames that wrapped his body didn’t give off any heat; the glyphs against his skin were concrete gray. If it hadn’t been for the slow pulse of the glyph beneath his feet, I wouldn’t have thought he was inside that silent, silent shell.
    I pressed my fingertips against his bare chest, my palm over the fire of his heart. “Hey, lover,” I breathed.
    His emotions, his thoughts, filled me and I inhaled, wanting to make room for more of him, all of him.
    Allie, he exhaled through my mind. I couldn’t find you . Relief and fear. Then, anger. You didn’t follow. Tell me you didn’t follow me into death. Tell me you’re alive.
    “I’m alive,” I said out loud. I remembered what New Dad had said about Leander and Isabelle getting too close and being unable to draw apart. Zayvion and I were Soul Complements too. If I started talking in his head, I might lose track of myself. I couldn’t do that. I was counting on me to get us home.
    But sweet hells, I wanted to lose myself in him.
    It isn’t safe, he said. I told you not to come, not to find me. I told you not to risk yourself. Then, almost in a panic, You promised me you wouldn’t be a hero.
    He was frightened. Angry. Tied down. Stuck. Dead. And I had thrown myself into the grave after him.
    Yeah, well, maybe. But I’d been smart enough to bring a shovel and a ladder with me before I jumped in.
    I pulled my hand away, breaking our connection. I didn’t have enough brain to think my own thoughts, much less listen to his and deal with our combined fears. I was beyond tired and wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep. I didn’t think I was going to last much longer in death.
    We had to leave. Together. Now.
    “How do I free him?”
    “A Release, or Compulsion,” Old Dad said. “You will need to find a vessel for him to inhabit. He cannot walk through the gate back into life in this form.”
    “What? Why? He came through the gate in this form without a vessel.”
    “Every living thing can pass into death. It’s a door that swings one way.”
    “Hungers and other creatures come through gates into life all the time.”
    “The Hungers cross through but exist only briefly in life without magic to feed on and sustain them. When magic is gone, they are spirit form again. But a soul. . . . ” He paused. “A soul is a very different matter. Once a soul crosses into death, it can never return to life. Always, the body follows into death.”
    “Not always,” New Dad said.
    Old Dad looked annoyed that he had brought that up. “True. There are exceptions. Rare circumstances. But Zayvion is not one of those exceptions. His soul will slip through your fingers and fall back into death before you can rejoin his soul to body— if you can rejoin his soul to body. That will take a mastery of Life and Death magic, which you do not possess.”
    “Won’t you be surprised when I do it anyway?”
    “Allie,” New Dad said, “Zayvion carries the glyphs of light and dark magic on his soul. It is one of the prices of being a guardian of the gates and using both light and dark magic. It marks his soul. And that which gives him strength in life chains him in death.”
    “You said if I opened a gate, he could go back.”
    “I never promised it would be easy. The glyphs have taken root in death now,” Old Dad said.
    He was right. The ashy glyphs trailed down his body, long tendrils of silver and gray smoke that sank like the chains into the floor.
    He was trapped here. Those chains on his ankles, wrists, waist, and neck weren’t just magic—they were the magic burned into his soul.
    No. Hells no. I knew