16. I’m A Killer Everywhere
DESDEMONA
The Lucents did not always have shadow magic, not for a long time, in fact. For centuries, they were seen as nothing more than mentalists. I can’t imagine the shock the first one had when she found she could move shadows.
— LUCENT MAGIC AND THE NATURE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND BY CLEMENTINE PROTNUS
Iwalk away from the dead body on the ground. A dead body I know. Bernice. I think I killed him, and I’m just walking away, because what else can I do?
The trees around me catch fire. It doesn’t even take a minute for a twenty-some-foot tree to become engulfed by the flames. I run. Was that me? I didn’t know I could set fires yet. Mom always told me my powers would manifest when I was older.
The fire follows me while I feel my heartbeat in every inch of my body. “Mom!” I’m calling, and my throat is growing raw. I think I’m running toward home.
I did kill Bernice. I must’ve burned him to death. I killed a boy, and now I’m going to kill a forest. He told me I was just as bad as the Nepenthe who are killing us. I think he might’ve been right, because I killed him, just like a Nepenthe.
“Mom!” I scream, and my throat hurts so bad. “Mommy!”
“Desdemona?” I hear her. Relief floods me like the river, and I almost stop running. I’m safe now.
“Mommy!” I run into her and wrap my arms around her hips.
She pulls me back, holding me while she sits on her knees to meet my eyes. She looks scared. “You need to put it out.” But I just look at her. I can feel the heat flooding my back. “Put it out!” she screams, turning me around so I face the fire. It’s so close to me.
I hold out my hand and they lick the flames.
And I wake up with a scream.
I’m safe,I repeat in my head. I’m inside, there’s no fire, and I’m safe. Sweat is pouring from my forehead, from every inch of my body. I’m lying in my own puddle, but I’m safe.
Only, air is caught in my throat, and it doesn’t take long until I’m hyperventilating.
“Des?” Aralia says. “Des, are you alright?”
“Fine,” I try to say while taking shallow breaths, but I can’t manage to get the word out.
“What is it?” she asks, her voice a calm, soothing whisper. Then she gets up and sits next to me in my bed. “Gods, you’re burning up.” She places her hands on my body, right over my lungs, and a second later I can breathe.
“I’m fine,” is all I can say. When I finally am able to catch my breath, she gives me a look and I know she wants more. “Bad dream, it’s fine. Go back to bed.” Then I say, “I apologize for waking you.”
“Don’t worry,” Aralia says with a small shake of her head.
When it sounds like she’s fallen back to sleep, I grab my notebook where I’ve started writing the dreams.
I must’ve been six, maybe the early months of seven, if Bernice were there. Why am I dreaming of killing Bernice? Yeah, he was an asshole, but I never wanted to kill him. I was six.
I start writing. And when I grow tired of writing and hot in the room, I leave for a walk.
These past few days, Lucian has occupied my mind for more time than I’d like to admit, and in turn, I’ve been ignoring him more than I’d like to admit.
It doesn’t matter what I feel, what matters is who he is, and I remind myself of that often. He’s going to be king, and if he ever finds out who I really am he’s gonna change his mind about me inspiring endearment.
Besides, he’s just a means to an end, I tell myself. A way to find my mom. Someone willing to break Soman law.
He’s irreplaceable. He knows too much to get away now.
I walk to the lake, out of habit from meeting Lucian here every week to train. Sitting at the edge, I dip my feet in the cool water and feel marginally better. I rest my hands behind me and look at the sky, counting the stars. I kind of relate to them. Everyone is looking, but no one is close enough to really see them. At least, in the stars’ case, they’re not purposely keeping everyone at arm’s length.
They’re that way by coincidence, I’m here by necessity.
Suddenly, everything goes black. Like I can’t see a thing, black. The chill that comes with the darkness tells me they’re shadows, which I’ve only ever experienced at Lucian’s hand.
“Lucian?” I call. No response.
They don’t feel like Lucian’s shadows.
Then those shadows are wrapping around me, constricting my throat, my mouth, and I can’t breathe again. Someone grabs my shoulders, and it’s not Lucian.
Instinctively, I smash my head back, right into the Lucent’s nose. I hear them groan and feel their magic slipping from around my mouth, but my vision is still compromised. I start kicking and punching in every direction, hoping to hit them. Then they catch my fist, twist my arm all the way around, and I hear a pop. I can’t help but let out a cry. Then I kick, once, twice before they catch my ankle and flip me so hard I’m on my back.
I pull my dagger from my waistband. I haven’t slept without it since Aralia gave it to me, same with the letter opener, which I also have on me.
I’m starting to see stars from the lack of oxygen when I feel pressure in my shoulder. Instinctively, I reach for the pain and my hand is met by the hilt of a blade that burns. Then I kick hard before standing. I hit their knees.
I slash my dagger in every direction, ignoring the dull ache in my shoulder. They grab my wrist, overpowering me and forcing my injured arm down, and I swear it hurts more than the blade in my shoulder.
My dagger falls from my hand, and there’s no time to pick it up. But now I know where this Lucent is in relation to me.
I pull the knife that’s lodged in my shoulder out, and the second I do it feels like layers of skin are being ripped from my palm. I refrain from letting out a scream and sink it into their shoulder. I’m surprised when I don’t hear a yell, or feel another punch.
And if I hit their shoulder, why do I hear them gurgling?
The shadows dissipate, leaving me standing in the clear night with a man at my feet and a knife lodged in his throat.
The hilt is red, and he is dead.
I fall to my knees, blood-curdling pain rippling through my arm and shoulder as I bleed out. My shirt—Aralia’s shirt—is entirely soaked, but her black jacket conceals it enough.
What am I going to do? There’s no way I can carry him, not with my shoulder, and there’s no way I can get someone to heal my shoulder, not without telling them what happened.
Not without admitting I’m a killer.
I’m a killer. A killer who’s likely to bleed out if I don’t do something.
I just have to get the Lucent into the lake, then I can worry about bleeding out.
I walk to the dead body, but I can’t take my eyes away from his. They’re open wide, staring into the sky but not seeing. I think I’m going to puke, but I force myself not to.
How am I going to pull him into the lake if I can’t pull myself together?
Grabbing the body by the feet, I try to walk to the lake and end up almost screaming from the pressure against my shoulder. Suddenly it’s really hard to get any air in my lungs, even though I am breathing.
Then I hear someone’s footsteps, coming closer and closer. Letting go of his feet quickly, I run behind a tree. Then I spot the dagger Aralia gave me, sitting really close to the dead body.
Screwed, that’s what I am. I’m screwed.
When the person’s features come into view, I realize just how screwed I might be. Lucian picks up my dagger, certainly knowing it’s mine.
He knows entirely too much. It doesn’t matter what he thinks about me, whether or not he calls me darling or why. I have to level the playing field, somehow. He knows about my mom, my sorry excuse for magic, and now about this murder. All while I know nothing, nothing I could use against him if it came down to it.
I carefully move out from behind the tree and hold a blade to his throat. The pain shoots through my shoulder even though I’m using the opposite arm, and I bite my tongue so hard I draw blood. I can’t scream now, I have to appear strong.
“One word about this to anyone and I’ll slit your throat.” But doing this now, after what he’s said, what I’ve felt, doesn’t feel right. It feels worse than not right, it feels entirely wrong.
I think about how I last saw him. He was lying on the floor of the suite, drenched in sweat with eyes glossed over in a way that reminds me of the dead man at our feet. I was so gentle then, gentle the way I never want to be, gentle in the way that makes you weak.
Lucian looks down at my blade and outstretched arm. “With a letter opener?” he says with a laugh. I force the shock of his reaction away. He was just lying there, dying on my floor, and now he’s laughing at my blade.
I don’t get him at all.
I scowl. “I’ll make it work.” Then something wraps around the blade, pulling it from my hand. Shadows.
“I’ll give back your toy when you’re a little less murderous.” He makes a very pointed look at the dead man.
“He was going to kill me!” I emphasize quietly.
“Okay,” he says with a small shrug.
“You believe me, right?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I shrug in my best attempt to act as if I’m not scared beyond my wits end. “Well I’d just burn you then. If you’re thinking of saying anything.” I clench my jaw and raise an eyebrow in defense, but stars are starting to cloud my vision, and I’m not entirely sure I’m standing up.
“You’re more violent than I anticipated.”
I’m going to say… something, but most of my energy is being spent trying to keep my head upright. The stars are filling my vision fast now. They’re brighter than the shadows that stole my vision before. It looks closer to day than night. Suddenly, I’m sure I’m going to pass out.
Lucian is next to me when he asks, “What happened?”
My head tips to the side and my legs lose their muscle. I’m falling. But something catches me. It’s Lucian’s arms that are around my waist, gently lowering me to the ground. I’d know this feeling anywhere.
My eyes lull back and forth and I try to hold onto the world, but the feeling of floating into unconsciousness is so much more appealing.
It’s Lucian’s hands moving across my body, pulling my energy to his touch, that is keeping me awake. They move up my legs first, around my hips, to my waist, and stop at my shoulder. I hear the tearing of fabric and feel the cold air brush my flushed body and skin. I shudder.
“Stay with me,” he whispers, but he sounds so far away. Like either he’s flying, or I am.
Then I’m screaming when something cold and wet moves into my opened flesh.
“It’s alright,” he whispers. “You can scream.”
I don’t want to scream, I want to sleep. I do. I fall further and further down into darkness…
“Marquees?” I think I am shaking. “Marquees!” The name that isn’t mine echoes. “Come on, Des, wake up!” My face is certainly shaking. It doesn’t feel like mine.
Cold fills the wound, and my eyes open with a jerk. My hand moves slowly to my shoulder. It’s not just wet, it’s swelling.
I squint at the sight of Lucian’s bare torso. “Why are you shirtless?”
He holds up a wet cloth. “Because my shirt is covered in your blood.”
I try to speak, but all that comes out is a croak. “You don’t have to talk, but know I am missing your witty remarks.” He smiles a little, and I can’t help but think that it’s for my benefit.
“Hey.” It is only when I hear his voice that I realize my eyes are closing. “Marquees, stay with me.” I look at him. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Focus on me.” His calloused hand touches my cheek. He smirks, the action sending my eyes to his lips.
“Are you looking at my lips again?” he says joyfully. So carefree. Like it’s a day in the sun. “Listen, I know you like them,” he says and whispers, “perhaps a little too much, if you ask me, but I do have other attributes.”
I can’t stop myself from laughing. The sound is a sorry one. “Ass,” I mumble.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Soon you’ll find better comebacks.” He sounds so sarcastic, but the way his fingers rake through my hair feels anything but. “We can’t all be witty and pretty.”
“You sound like a bad poem,” I croak.
“Well if my words are too much for you, then go ahead and look at my lips again.”
It’s like his words are a spell because when he says look, I do.
He smirks again.
Ass.
My hand reaches for the wound, but he swats it away, mumbling, “Hold on.” I watch as he fills the wound with literal shadows. “I have to do this bit by bit, so as not to freeze you,” he whispers.
He’s keeping me from bleeding out. That’s what he was doing when he was going on about his lips.
The shadows don’t aid in the pain, but they will keep me alive long enough to take care of the body.
I wonder if I would’ve bled out if he didn’t come.
I don’t want him saving my life. I don’t want to owe him a thing. I don’t want to talk about his lips and call him an ass.
I don’t want to be reminded of the intimacy that I can feel for him.
I try to sit up and Lucian says, “You need rest.”
“No,” I croak and sit up all the way, despite or maybe even in spite of the pain. “We have to…”
“We’re not putting him in the lunar lake,” Lucian says immediately.
“I never said?—”
“You were going to,” he says.
“Not necessarily.” That was exactly what I was going to do.
“He won’t sink here. Sulva has a thing about secrets. Everything comes to light eventually. If we take him to the coast, he’ll be further away when he does resurface.”
“Okay,” I say. My mouth is so dry. “Let’s go.”
“I can do it.”
“Without me?” I ask. Why would he do that?
“Yes,” he answers.
“No, I’m coming.” I still feel dizzy, and a little emotional, like I’m going to cry at any moment. “This is my problem. I’ll take care of it.”
“With a dislocated shoulder and a stab wound?” he questions.
“Yes!”
“Then grab his shoulders,” Lucian says, and I can tell it’s a challenge.
I walk slowly to the body on the ground, and when I try to lift him, I fall. The strain on my shoulder is too much. My vision goes white, and I have no choice but to let go of the body.
The body. That’s all this man is now, a body. What if he wasn’t trying to kill me? What if he saw me clearly, despite his shadows, and aimed for my shoulder on purpose?
I aimed for his shoulder too, I remind myself. But that doesn’t make it better. Suddenly, I’m looking at Lucian and saying, “I aimed for his shoulder. I swear. I–I couldn’t see in the shadows, but I was aiming for his shoulder. I swear?—”
He sits next to me, inches from the body. “It’s alright,” he says softly, too softly. He never talks this softly. His eyes are on mine, and his hands are too. “I believe you.” Those three words are the emotional embodiment of putting shadows in my wound to stop the bleeding. I don’t know why it matters to me that he believes me, but it does. It really does.
Lucian opens a portal, then lifts the body. The body. I’ve been here before, but it doesn’t feel real. It never did.
When we’re on the coast, I sit on the sand with my knees to my chest and watch Lucian pull the man to the sea. I’m shaking too much, rocking back and forth and fighting a chill that isn’t coming from the cold.
Then I spot a knife strapped to the dead man’s waistband, its hilt iridescent in the moonlight. Moonstone.
I get up, put my arm on Lucian’s chest while I walk to the top of the body, closest to the water. I duck down near his chest, and I spot the seal of Soma, tiny and covered by a scrap of fabric.
“You told me I’d be safe here,” I whisper without looking at him. My eyes are locked on the Soman seal. “And now I’ve killed someone because I trusted you.” Another someone.
He looks at me guiltily, and suddenly I think that he has both my weapons. Is this all a setup? It couldn’t be. It could be. He could’ve been lying to me this entire time. But to what end, for what purpose?
“If it wasn’t you it would’ve been me.” I hate how soft his voice is. “That man wasn’t making it out alive tonight. Not after what he did to you.”
“That’s not enough! I trusted you,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “You said I’d be safe here.” But I’m a murderer in the septic too. It’s not like I had anywhere to actually go. I’m equivalent to homeless, in my heart at least. I don’t belong anywhere.
I’m a killer everywhere.
Three people. Two Folk and a Lucent, dead at my hands. No matter where I go, I can never shed the bodies. The blood doesn’t stop at the hands, because I’m covered in it. I’m surprised no one sees it when I walk the halls of this school.
Now Lucian will, if he doesn’t kill me right here and now. But he’s had every opportunity to kill me, and I’m the only killer here.
“I don’t want to be a killer,” I whisper, saliva stopping me from enunciating my words properly. “I don’t want to be a killer,” I say again, but say is a sad excuse for what I really sound like. Cry is more like it. I don’t want to cry. I wipe my tears and bite my tongue before he can see. I want Lucian to believe that I would slit his throat if he told someone. That if he comes close, I will burn him.
Crying about not wanting to be a killer isn’t the way to do that.
Lucian sits next to me, and I can’t bring myself to move. Maybe I could burn him, if he makes any move. But I don’t think that I actually think he will. I don’t know. I wish I had the strength to push him away. Because if he’s not here to kill me, he’s here to comfort me, and I don’t want to be coddled, I want to be feared. But I don’t think I look very scary right now.
“You won’t be the same,” he says in that soft tone again. “But you’ll be alright.”
And all it takes are those words for me to break entirely. I fall into myself, my head and shoulders collapse, and Lucian pulls me into his chest. It feels good to be held, and for a moment I feel safe again, like I’m five years old and the war hasn’t begun and I’m sitting on my mom’s lap with a cup of hot water while she tells me her stories. Her life before the septic.
For a moment, everything is okay in the world. Nothing bad has happened to me yet and I’m not a killer. I breathe in the scent—pine and something sweeter that chills my nostrils as I inhale it. It’s comforting. Familiar and foreign. The fine line between childhood and what lies ahead for me, but I don’t want to think about that quite yet. I just want to be held.
Lucian strokes the back of my head, brushing through my hair with his fingers, sending ripples of sensation down my spine. And when he softly says, “You’ll be alright,” I realize I’m still crying. I don’t try to stop the tears this time, I just let them go.
You’ll be alright.
* * *
Lucian takes me back to my suite, but when he’s knocking at Wendy’s door, I’m instantly confused. I’ve managed to do little more than nod since breaking down. I’m still breaking down. My shoulder’s gone numb, or maybe I have, and every time I close my eyes I see the dead Lucent and sometimes the dead Folk.
Wendy opens the door. Her gaze meets Lucian’s, and it’s so full of emotion that I feel like I’m intruding on some kind of moment. “What happened to you?” she whispers.
Lucian clears his throat and stutters when he says, “Desdemona needs your help.” I’ve never once heard him stutter.
Wendy’s eyes shoot to me and her face drops. “What happened to her?” she asks Lucian with her eyes on me.
“Dislocated shoulder,” he answers, and she winces.
Lucian tilts his head toward the door, beckoning her, and without even looking at him Wendy says, “Okay.”
She exits back into her room and comes out with a tray, then the three of us silently leave the suite and walk through the school, all the way to the Royal floor, with Lucian half carrying me the whole way there. We’re in the same room where Lucian taught me to dance for days straight, and when our eyes collide, I can’t stop the electricity from moving through my body.
I look away, fast, and Wendy’s at my side when I do.
“Can you?” she says. Lucian waves a hand and I feel heat fill the stab wound while warm blood begins to trickle out of it. Suddenly I realize just how much pain the shadow actually was holding back, because a wave of it washes over me, putting me back in a state of agony. Wendy wastes no time before rubbing some kind of salve in the wound.
She puts her gloved index finger under my nose and tells me to inhale. It’s not long before I feel a bit more subdued, a little more drowsy, maybe even numb again. My eyelids drop, and I can barely hold them open until I decide there’s no reason to anyway.
I’m greeted by the darkness.
That is until something tugs on my shoulder, and I wake up with a jolt. Wendy has her hand over my mouth before I can scream and keeps it there when she turns back to Lucian.
“Calista’s working on it.” Then she turns to me, tells me it’s okay, and that I can close my eyes.
I close my eyes again, but I don’t fall into nothingness like I had before.
It’s quiet for a minute, and in that minute the room travels far from me. I’m losing my grip on the moment entirely, slowly slipping into the cracks of the silence.
Then I hear Wendy, but it’s more like she’s off in the sky somewhere. I see her there, see her flying. “What’s that about?”
“What’s what about?” Lucian’s flying too. In the sky with light wrapping around his body.
“That feeling,” she whispers. She’s going higher up with every exhale.
“Is she out?” He’s moving away from me. I can still see those midnight eyes of his and the little bits of light blue and the divot in his lip.
“Yes,” Wendy says. “Now, are you going to tell me what happened to you?” Silence stretches while they dance around one another in the clouds. “You don’t feel the same.”
“I’m not the same,” Lucian finally says. He’s floating further and further away, but his words still echo through my mind. “It’s not important right now. Desdemona is, then the book.”
“She’ll be fine,” Wendy says while she floats over me, caressing my face.
“Yeah, she will,” Lucian says while he leaves my view entirely.