The Sparring Match

Silas didn't even flinch. With a lazy flick of his wrist, an invisible wave of telekinetic force slammed into Harper’s spell, shattering the crimson whip into harmless sparks of red light.

"Violent as ever, Vance," Silas tsked, stepping away from the bookshelf. He floated a few inches off the ground, drifting through the stacks with infuriating grace. "I would have thought my tragic demise might have softened your edges."

"You're a Class-Four poltergeist now," Harper gritted out, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. Her muscles were already beginning to scream in protest. The magic was feeding off her physical vitality, turning her veins to battery acid. "My edges are exactly as sharp as they need to be to send you to the abyss."

She lunged, spinning on her heel and throwing a volley of concussive hexes. Books exploded off the shelves as Silas dodged, the air cracking with the pressure of their colliding power. He laughed—a deep, resonant sound that lacked the tinny echo of a normal ghost. It sounded entirely too human.

Before Harper could ready another strike, a massive invisible force hit her squarely in the chest.

She was thrown backward, her boots leaving the floorboards, until her spine slammed hard against a heavy mahogany reading desk. The breath was knocked from her lungs. An invisible weight pinned her wrists to the wood, holding her flush against the edge of the desk.

The temperature plummeted instantly as Silas materialized directly in front of her. He was close enough that she could see the swirling, ethereal mist that made up his eyes.

"You're tense, Harper," Silas murmured, his voice dropping to a seductive, mocking purr. He leaned in, his ghostly form radiating a freezing aura that made her skin prickle. "Still carrying the weight of the world? Still trying to play the lone, tragic martyr?"

"Go to hell," Harper spat, her chest heaving. She struggled against the telekinetic bonds, refusing to show him the agonizing pain ripping through her core. "I don't need anyone. Least of all a dead, arrogant prick who couldn't even keep himself alive."

Silas’s smirk vanished. The flirty facade cracked, revealing a flash of genuine, volatile anger. The spectral grip on her wrists tightened.

"You're bleeding, Harper," Silas said harshly, his gaze dropping to the blood trickling from her nose. "Your magic is eating you alive. You push everyone away, you take contracts too big for one person, and you burn your own life force to compensate. You're going to kill yourself just to prove you don't need a partner."

"It keeps them safe!" Harper yelled, her voice breaking the heavy silence of the library. "If I work alone, no one else dies! Now let me go!"

She squeezed her eyes shut, digging into the absolute bottom of her reserves. She didn't care if it tore her muscles apart. She didn't care if it left her bedridden for a week. She channeled the raw, blinding agony in her body and forced it outward, shattering Silas's telekinetic hold with a shockwave of red energy.