Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“What are you doing here?” he repeats. His eyes look slightly panicked as they scan my face. “The things they’re saying, Vi—”
“I know,” I say. “They aren’t true.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “We need to talk. Let’s get you out of the open.”
He leads me down a side passage to an alcove used for storage. A few crates are stacked in a corner with what looks to be a supply of soap rations and rags.
“I’m looking for Professor Borges,” I say, not wanting to waste any time. “It’s important. Have you seen her down here?”
Kole shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.”
My shoulders slump. “I thought she might be staying with family. She’s been missing from Vandenberghe for days.” I shake my head. “I have to keep looking, even if I knock on every door.”
“Is this about that book you showed me?”
I look up at him. His hands are on his hips, and his jaw is clenched—he’s worried. “Yes.”
Kole shakes his head. “I know you said it was important, but is it really that important right now? Viola, they’re saying you killed the Queen. They’re saying you’re a meiga.” He exhales a shaky breath.
I hesitate, biting my lip. I study Kole’s face—his peat-green eyes that have always been so full of compassion and curiosity.
He’s never given me a reason not to trust him.
And I need people I can trust, now more than ever.
“I need to tell you something,” I start, fiddling with the sleeve of my sweater. “I didn’t kill the Queen. But it’s true … I am a meiga, Kole.”
I catch the moment the truth hits him, his pupils narrowing slightly, his nostrils flaring. He freezes for a moment and then takes a deep breath.
“Okay …”
“I know I should have told you earlier. I was just so afraid. I’ve kept it to myself for years because I didn’t know what you’d think, and I was scared. But now things have gone so horribly wrong—”
He leans a hand against the wall to steady himself. “Okay. Okay,” he says. “Does the Prince know?”
I nod.
He looks back down at the floor and shakes his head. “Saints, it all makes sense. How did I not guess it?”
He still isn’t looking at me.
“Kole,” I say, taking a tentative step forward. I reach out a hand to place it on his shoulder …
And he flinches.
“Kole?”
He bends over, dropping his head into his hands.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“How could you do this to me, Vi?”
Something drops in my stomach.
“Do what?”
His breathing turns heavy. “They’re hunting down meigas as we speak. They’re looking for you everywhere. What am I supposed to do now?”
I take a step back. “You can help me find Professor Borges. She can help.”
His eyes are set on the floor, his face blank.
“Kole, look at me.”
“What do you want me to say, Viola?”
I choke. “That you’ll help me. Say that we’ll figure this out together.”
“You’re a meiga.”
“We’re not what the Crown says we are. We’re not evil.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he hisses, standing up straight.
I take another step back. “Why are you angry at me?”
“Why am I angry? I have to decide whether to turn you over to the guard or risk being tried for treason myself, and you want to know why I’m angry?”
Ice slides down my back.
He finally meets my gaze, and when he does, there is only fear and fury in his eyes. I know with sudden certainty—he doesn’t see his friend anymore. He sees a threat.
Roze’s words ring in my head. Men like him discard people as soon as they fail to prove themselves useful.
And suddenly, the guise that I’ve been wearing with Kole for months shatters around me. I am unmasked, and it’s too late to pull myself back.
“What’s wrong with you?” I bark. “We’re friends.”
“And yet, you’ve been keeping this from me this whole time.”
“Because I was afraid. And it turns out I had good reason to be.” I glare at him with a venom that I haven’t felt for anyone, even for Roze.
An expression forms on Kole’s features that I’ve never seen before—bitterness and hatred.
It turns his handsome face ugly. “What were you hoping I’d do now?
Tell you it was all going to be all right, that it doesn’t matter to me what you are?
Maybe you were hoping I’d tell you that I’ve had feelings for you for ages, that I’d love you no matter what. ”
His words are like a slap. Blood drains from my face.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. You’re really damn obvious, Viola.”
“I didn’t— I haven’t— I didn’t expect anything—”
“It doesn’t matter. I was going to tell you I didn’t feel the same way, but I was hesitating because I didn’t want to hurt our friendship. But now?” He shakes his head and curses again. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”
I snap. “I’m doing this to you?” Waffles starts to growl at my feet and shadows pour from my fingertips, and I don’t even think to stop them. “My life is in danger, Kole. My life. All I did was turn to a friend, and now you’re acting like—like my mere existence is some great insult to you.”
He shakes his head, looking at me with something like … disgust. “You’re not stupid, Viola. You have to know what you are. The fact that you thought you and I could—” An unmistakable shudder tremors through his body, and a feeling worse than death unfurls in my heart.
He’s afraid of me.
He’s disgusted by me.
The pain in my heart is real, visceral. Shattering.
“I just wanted your help,” I mutter. My voice is small and pathetic. The way he’s looking at me is like I should have known. Like I’m being presumptuous by daring to have feelings for him.
I am nothing.
My magic has made me worse than nothing.
A disease. A menace.
Darkness starts to cloud my vision and my heart.
Waffles yips to get my attention, but I barely hear him.
I don’t even notice my shadows beginning to flow freely from my fingertips as my mind fills with memories—the disgust on my parents’ faces when my shadows first appeared, so similar to Kole’s expression now; my mother’s heartbreak as she held my brother’s limp body; my father’s rage. My fault. My ugliness. My evil.
The absurd urge to tear open my own flesh and rip my shadows out with my bare hands consumes me.
But instead, they burst from me like water breaking a dam, and I scream.
I fall to my knees, barely cognizant of my surroundings, but I know my shadows are everywhere, and I don’t care.
I’m so tired—of holding back, pretending not to feel, hiding.
Tears fall down my cheeks, not just for Kole, but for my parents, for my brother, for every hateful word ever spoken against what I am, for a lifetime of pain that I’ve borne like a soldier. I’m breaking. I can’t carry the burden anymore.
The pounding of footsteps breaks through my thoughts. I swing my head toward the hall just as a pair of men round the corner. My shadows instantly spring back to me, hiding beneath my flesh. But they saw. I’m sure they saw them. The men blink like they aren’t quite sure of themselves.
“Are you all right, Miss?” one of them says, holding a light up high to see my face. His clothing tells me he’s a commoner, like me. “We heard a—”
He stops dead. His eyes are no longer on me—they’re set several feet away. And when I follow the track of his gaze …
Oh Saints.
Kole is on the ground. His body lies at an odd, twisted angle, skin pale as ash, almost bluish, and his eyes … his eyes stare right at me, fixed on me but not seeing me.
“Is—is that boy dead?” the other man asks.
I don’t answer. I’ve lost my voice. My ears are ringing.
No. No, no, NO.
One of them approaches, inspects him, looks for a pulse. He doesn’t need to say aloud what all three of us already know.
He turns toward me slowly, eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
I choke. Words won’t come.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“Why’s he all twisted like that?” says the other man, taking a step backward.
More footsteps. Several more people enter the hall.
“What’s going on?”
“Who screamed?”
“Oh my Saints, is he—”
And then I hear the words that break me out of my trance. One of the first two men says, “I thought I saw … I wasn’t sure, but … now the boy’s dead, and …”
“Stop blabbering. What did you see?”
His eyes find mine. “It was her. She—she had this darkness coming from her. It was everywhere. And then the boy was dead.”
Silence resounds as every face in the hall turns toward me. Waffles nips at my shin, urging me to get up.
Go, I urge myself. Get out NOW!
Then I’m running. I shove people aside, sprinting for the exit to the castle, not registering faces. Waffles flaps behind me, growling and gnashing at anyone who gets too close. My tears are cold against my cheeks as I run at a full sprint.
I don’t slow down until I reach the safety of Roze’s tower, and I lock myself inside.