Chapter 46
Severin
BY THE TIME I MAKE it to the staff wing, the storm outside has intensified, swallowing the castle whole. Rain lashes against the stained glass windows, clouds obscuring the moon and stars in the dark sky beyond.
I heard her scream. As I descended the staircase from the tower, her voice cut through even the stone.
I wanted so badly to go to her, to turn around and rush out onto the spire and crush her against my chest. But I resisted.
And the tug beneath my sternum only intensified because of it, raging against me.
The tension still sits there, right behind my ribs, as I unlock the door to my apartment. The key grates against my burnt palm, and I wince.
I know she didn’t mean to. Perhaps I even deserved it.
Pushing through the door, I step into my apartment, and cold air washes over me. My window is dark, and rain thrums against the glass, incessant and impossible to ignore.
With a sigh, I close and lock my door, then prop the swords against the wall, strip out of my jacket, and immediately go to the kitchen to search my cabinets for something to ease the fire licking through my blistered palm.
I locate a small tin of skin salve, grateful I have it. When I spread the cool ointment across my scorched flesh, a sharp sting follows, then eases into a creeping coldness that spreads outward from my palm and up into my wrist. My fingers tremble as the pain softens to a dull throb.
After wrapping my palm in a strip of soft cotton, I cross to the hearth and light the fire.
Wind whistles down the chimney, trying to put out the flames before they have a chance to take hold of the wood.
Once the fire catches, it tosses light across my small apartment, casting shadows along the walls.
And I wish Maeve were here. At every moment, I wish Maeve were here. And she has no idea how hard I had to fight my instincts up there on the tower, how badly I wanted to wrap her in my arms and never let her go again.
Her freedom is more important, I remind myself as I walk to my desk and take a seat with a heavy sigh. The circuit will steal that from her. It will alter her life forever. And I can’t allow that to happen.
I recall the words in the book: Marked deviation from natural lifespan. Vitality sustained beyond ordinary limits.
My jaw tightens.
Human lifetimes are fleeting compared to ours. Fragile. But fusing the circuit could change that for Maeve. It could change everything.
The thought feels like an anchor inside my chest, wanting to drag me down. I try to push it aside, to focus on anything else.
A stack of student essays waits for me, needing to be graded. Typically, I enjoy grading student work, encouraging them to think in new and different ways, but lately, everything has felt dull and monotonous, like Maeve is my summer, and without her, I’m stuck in a perpetual dreary winter.
As if to solidify my point, rain lashes against the window with more vigor, and the fire dances in the wind swirling through the chimney.
I wonder if anyone else knows that the storm is Maeve’s doing. Rain during winter is a rarity here, and there’s only one storm witch on campus.
On my desk, I grab a student essay from the tidy stack, then uncap my inkwell and pick up my quill. My palm aches a bit at the contact, but somehow, it feels grounding.
Outside, thunder rumbles, and my chest goes tight at the exact same moment, as if my heart is tied to Maeve’s magic, to her storm.
And I know now that it is.
I stare down at the first essay, but my mind struggles to focus.
All I see is her: windswept hair, violet eyes blazing with anger, lightning dancing along the steel of her sword.
She was magnificent tonight, though I imagine she would’ve become even more irate with me if I’d told her that.
And she has every reason to be upset. But I have to maintain this distance between us—for her own good. Someday, I hope she may understand.
Once more, I attempt to focus on the work in front of me. After a stretch of time in which I read an entire essay without absorbing a word, I put my quill down and stalk into my kitchen. I’ve not needed blood for some time, but right now, thirst is starting to claw up my throat.
I pour myself a glass. The sharp scent reaches me immediately, and I almost curl my lip at it.
It smells nothing like Maeve’s blood. In comparison, this blood smells stagnant, dead.
I drink it anyway.
The blood coats my tongue and throat without offering any relief from the dissatisfaction lingering inside me. Still, I force myself to drink.
Halfway through the glass, nausea stirs in my stomach, and I set the tumbler down with a clink, staring into the red liquid through narrowed eyes.
This should be enough. This used to be enough.
Until I tasted her.
Now everything is bland, both tasteless and nauseating in equal measure.
I have the urge to fling the glass across my apartment, to hear it shatter against stone. But I stay my hand. I cannot allow myself to slip and lose control—not after fighting so hard to maintain it.
My chest and throat constrict. My hunger feels directed, as if my cells have finally been given what they’ve waited three centuries for. And they cry out for me to find her.
Maeve.
A sudden rush of sensation comes over me—the feeling of rain against my face, the wind in my hair, the thunder rumbling through my bones. And without needing to question or consider it, I know where the sensation came from.
She’s still out there, on the tower, in the storm. Waiting. For me.
I turn toward the window, and on the other side of the glass, lightning flashes, blinding me with its intense white light.
With a growl, I cross my apartment and yank the drapes closed, casting my space into deeper darkness, with only the fire to provide light.
I want to go to Maeve, to demand she get inside. I want to draw her a hot bath and run my fingers through her hair, to bathe every inch of her skin and then wrap her in a blanket and set her before the fire so that she can feel its warmth.
Without meaning to, I’m at the door. My fingers are wrapped around the knob, and the sting in my palm is the only thing that brings me back to reality, that stops me from rushing to her.
I can do no such thing.
Not without endangering her in a way I cannot bear to comprehend.
I release the doorknob and begin to pace. I move from the door to my desk, from my desk to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the hearth. But no number of circles around my apartment does anything to ease the anxiety sitting inside my chest.
Back in the kitchen, I pick up the glass and force myself to take a drink, barely resisting the urge to gag.
Outside, thunder rumbles again, so powerful that I feel it vibrate beneath my boots. The storm is directly overhead. My fingertips tighten around the cool glass as a flash of lightning slips through my drawn drapes, pulling my attention to the window.
My heart stutters.
For a single moment, I feel her clearly again: head tipped back, frigid rainwater coursing down her face, the storm above manifesting the chaos she feels inside.
Get inside, I think, gritting my teeth. She’s going to catch her death out there.
And it’ll be my fault. All of this is my fault.
The sensation of feeling her vanishes a second later, leaving me breathing hard in my empty kitchen, fingers still wrapped around the glass of disgusting donated blood.
Distance is supposed to weaken the circuit—or I believed it would.
But it seems to be doing the opposite. If anything, the thread between us is pulling tighter than ever, often leaving me out of breath.
It’s as if my denial of it is forcing it to seek out other pathways, like water cutting through stone.
I go back to the hearth and toss another log onto the crackling fire, feeling the burst of heat from the flames kiss my face.
But I remain cold, and I know it’s because Maeve is cold.
I know it in the same way that I know when dawn is approaching without having to look at the horizon.
It’s the connection between us, tying us to each other.
Tying her to me.
I grit my teeth and drag one hand down my face, feeling the stubble on my chin. I need to bathe and shave and grade those damn essays.
Why does it feel like I’m slowly falling apart?
The thunder rumbles again, though it’s softer this time, and I can’t help but to feel it’s answering my question.
I’m falling apart because I’m meant to be with her. But it’s the one thing I can’t allow. For her freedom, I will continue to resist.
Even as everything in me rages against the separation.