Chapter 44
Maeve
SOMETHING IS WRONG. I CAN feel it in my chest, in each beat of my heart. And I saw it on Severin’s face when he looked up at me. For the first time since I met him, I saw what looked like fear in his eyes.
And it scared me.
At a distance, I follow him through the academy’s corridors. Outside, the light has started to change, the sun inching toward the horizon, sending golden beams slanting through the castle’s stained glass windows.
It’s beautiful, that golden hour right before dusk, yet I find I can’t stop to appreciate it.
Because something is wrong.
Internally, I run through ideas about what it may be.
Has someone discovered us and our forbidden relationship? If that were the case, though, Severin wouldn’t have been in the restricted section of the library; rather, he would’ve been in Headmistress Moonhart’s office. So that must not be it.
Could it have something to do with the fellowship? But Professor Azula wasn’t anywhere around, and apart from helping me the way he has, Severin has no academic connection to my fellowship, so he’d likely not know even if something had gone wrong.
What, then? What could possibly have caused that look on his face? And why is the thread in my chest aching like this, like it’s pulling too tight too fast?
Severin continues through the halls, and I remain just far enough back so as not to make it clear that I’m following him.
Students move around us, and though a couple try to stop me to chat, I excuse myself from the conversations quickly.
I don’t have time to waste; I need to know what has Severin so clearly distressed.
Though I lost sight of him after the last person tried to pull me aside to talk, I can still feel the thread connecting us, and it leads me to the hallway where Severin’s office is. When I get there, the door is cracked, and I can tell before stepping through that he’s on the other side.
I rap my knuckles gently against the wood, then push the door open and step inside.
Severin is staring out the window, arms stiff at his sides, tension obvious in the way he’s holding his shoulders.
“Sever—”
“Close the door,” he says, an edge to his voice that isn’t usually there.
I oblige, closing the door behind me, then step farther into the room.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “What’s happened?”
Without glancing over his shoulder at me, he says, “How could you tell something was wrong?”
Fingers trembling, I reach up to touch my sternum. “I felt it. I was out in the Whim with Poppy, and I felt that something was bothering you.” I take a breath and let it out slowly. “And I can tell I’m right. So, what is it?”
For a long moment, Severin says nothing.
He just stares out the window, posture stiff, breathing slow and even.
I give him the time he needs, waiting on the opposite side of his desk—the desk where he once laid me down, where I wrapped my legs around him as he pressed his hips into mine and my magic swirled beneath my skin.
Severin’s shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, and then he turns and faces me. And whatever the emotion is that I see on his face, I don’t like it.
“The connection between us, that thread . . .” His gaze flicks down to my chest, as if he can see a golden string connecting us. “I found out what it is.”
I take one step closer, pressing my fingertips to the top of his desk. “Okay. That’s great. What is it, then?”
“It’s . . .” He flexes his jaw, a shadow of stubble dark against his pale skin. “It’s from your magic. Your elemental essence is so strong that it’s creating a loop between us.”
He gestures, twirling his finger in a circle, but I still don’t quite understand.
“A loop?”
“A circuit. I found an old text on blood magic that refers to the connection as a conduit-siphon circuit.”
“Okay.” I move slowly, pulling out the chair in front of Severin’s desk and sinking into it. “Is this circuit a bad thing?”
He draws another breath, not looking at me. Instead, his gaze is trained on something over my head, a furrow in his brow.
“The circuit can cause your magic to start seeking me out. To orient toward me.”
I nod slowly. “That makes sense. I’ve already felt that happening.”
“What?” His gaze snaps to mine.
“My magic has always sought you out, Severin. From the first day. You’re like a magnet for it. And after the feedings, that feeling got stronger.” I offer him a small smile, but he doesn’t smile back. “What’s the problem with that?”
“The problem,” he says slowly, “is that it could become permanent. Your magic could fuse with me in a way that won’t fade. And it could . . .” He trails off, lips pressing together, a muscle flexing in his jaw like he’s biting back the rest.
I’m too surprised to ask what he was about to say. I blink, settling back into the chair as I work through what he’s told me.
Permanent.
Before, the thought of my magic being bound to or pulled toward anything permanently would’ve scared me, made me run as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
And maybe it still should. But somehow, I can’t find it within myself to fear this.
I let it sit in my chest, turn it over this way and that, but no matter how I look at it, the fear doesn’t arise.
If anything, I feel . . . content. Safe. Like this is exactly what’s supposed to happen. My magic certainly feels like it wants to continue pulling toward Severin, and now that I’ve let it, everything feels easier. Even my energy sphere. All of it.
I don’t want that to change.
I meet Severin’s eyes again. “Okay.”
His crimson eyes narrow. “Okay? Is that all you have to say?”
There’s an edge to his words that I don’t appreciate, a sharpness he’s never spoken to me with. But when I reach for that thread in my chest, the connection running through my blood, I know his behavior for what it is: fear.
Slowly, I push to my feet. Severin’s gaze follows me as I round the desk, coming to stand next to him.
“What do you want me to say? That I’m scared? That we have to stop? That I don’t want to be bound to you?”
His jaw works, and he says softly, “That’s what I would expect.”
I venture a small smile. “Then it sounds like you don’t know me at all. Which I know isn’t true.” Reaching out, I let my fingers find his chest, and as I close my eyes, I feel our heartbeats aligning. “You feel that?”
Even with my eyes closed, I feel him nod.
“Is that really so scary?”
He reaches up to put his hand over mine, pushing my fingers more firmly into his chest. But then something changes in him; the connection between our hearts’ rhythms stutters. I open my eyes.
“I do know you,” he whispers. “And I know you’re fearless, Maeve.” His lips pull down at the corners, and he wraps his fingers around my hand, removing it from his heart and returning it to my side. “That’s why I can’t let you do this.” His voice tightens.
My heart thumps once, hard. For a moment, I hope I misheard him.
“What?”
“You’re young, and I have no business stealing your magic from you, taking your freedom in that way.” He flicks his gaze away from mine. “In more ways than you realize . . .”
“Stealing my magic?” Now a sharp edge is creeping into my voice. “You can’t steal something that’s freely given.”
“But you shouldn’t be giving it so freely.”
I take a small step back, crackles of lightning dancing in my veins. “That’s not your call to make.”
He clenches his teeth, muscles in his jaw and throat straining. I wish I could draw my lips along those muscles, kiss away their tension. But I don’t imagine that would help. Not right now.
“No,” he says. “Perhaps not. But I get to decide when to feed and from whom. And I won’t feed from you again. Not when it could bind you to me permanently, in ways that can’t be undone. In ways that will change everything.”
His words send a shock of frigid ice through my veins, and my storm magic surges, making my fingertips tingle. The spot where Severin last fed from me, right over my collarbone, aches in time with the beat of my heart.
And I realize just how badly I want him to keep feeding from me.
Not just because of the rapture that comes after his venom floods my body, but because of how close it makes me feel to him, because of the connection between us when his fangs are in my skin and my blood is being shared.
The thought of not getting to experience that again makes me feel hollow inside.
Severin must see the hurt on my face, because he softens. Stepping forward, he eases his arms around me slowly, as if I might erupt at any moment.
When I allow the touch, he guides me into his chest, where he holds me firmly against him.
“I don’t do this to hurt you, Maeve.” One of his hands comes up to stroke down the length of my hair. “This is because I care for you. Deeply. And I don’t want to take your freedom from you.”
I begin to push away from him, preparing to argue that he doesn’t get to decide my future or my freedom for me, but he doesn’t let me budge, instead squeezing me more tightly against his chest.
“Don’t fight me on this,” he says, his voice a whisper of breath that flutters against the top of my head, his arms sturdy as steel around me. “Please, Maeve. Try to understand.”
I don’t want to understand. What I want is to fight him on this, to demand he stop operating from a place of fear, to yell at him to be brave for us, to choose us.
But a tiny part inside me does understand, even if it frustrates me.
He doesn’t want to take my choices away. And in order not to, he has to take away the one thing he has control over: whether or not he feeds from me again.
He’s not doing this from a place of cruelty. I know that it’s coming from a place of love.
That realization takes the heat out of me.
I . . . understand.
I stop trying to push away, and with a sigh, I finally lift my arms and wrap them around his waist. Immediately, he softens, some of the tension leaving his body.
“I don’t like it,” I say, my voice muffled against his chest. “And I don’t agree with it. But I understand.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Thank you. I know this is the right decision.”
I don’t. But I’m not going to fight him on it. Not now, at least.
Yet deep inside my chest, I feel the pull. This time, though, it’s different. Like it’s pulling so hard that it’s starting to fray.
So I wrap my arms more tightly around Severin, and I hope that in time I might be able to change his mind.