Chapter 2
EVER
The colors hit me first. The glass windows and remaining bits of jade green ivy.
Blue walls like the Calderan sky. The whole damn spectrum surrounding Eli’s darkness, that aura around him.
He sits in front of the door in his usual black pants and T-shirt, knees up and arms slung around them, pockets galore.
The back of his head rests on the door, his neck exposed, those beautiful black curls hanging over his forehead.
Then anger surfaces. I already spent the rest of yesterday yelling, competing with the thunderstorm that bellowed outside. I couldn’t decide who I wanted to strangle first—Kelter or Eli.
I pull the blanket over my nose and stay still, a stark contrast to the glass vial-smashing frenzy of last night and the way I yanked the ivy from the walls, only to tangle myself into a glowing knot, pulling magic from the plant without trying.
Eli had to cut me free while I made up new swear words and threatened his balls.
My body is sore as though bruised all over from the Centress’ painful, memory-stealing magic, which is now inside me…
because I stole it. But I’m different. Temptation buzzes through me, trying to lead me farther down the dark paths I seek to escape.
My visions of death take me out of the moment and into pain and loss, and that I can handle.
But this is like slowly being buried, the light diminishing with the constant calls toward darkness.
I try to push past the layers and keep my head above the surface.
It’s not only the temptation to kick Eli in the gut that’s so alluring.
Or to land my ring-covered fist on Kelter’s cheek and bruise those freckles.
It’s the kind of darkness that hugs me when I’m alone, tricking me into falling deeper into its clutch, the kind that leaves me questioning the depth of my scars, if the damage is too much.
“How long are you going to lie there pretending to be asleep?” Eli asks, his deep voice instantly striking my nerves in a way I don’t want. My mind is livid, but my body remembers his hands and lips and tongue—and wants more.
“As long as it takes for you to go away.” I try to ignore the scent that makes its way across the room, damp earth in pitch darkness.
I’m used to his curse now, the whiplash from his dark aura to his light aura and back again, pulling me into him and pushing me away while everyone else only feels one or the other from him.
I don’t know what makes it different for me.
Even his skin is more fragile with my touch.
A half-smile finds his cheek before he cloaks it with disinterest. “I’m not going anywhere.” He holds a tiny folded piece of paper between two fingers, shifting it back and forth. A note.
Kelter throws open the door, whacking Eli in the back and forcing his way in.
“Ever.” He steps toward me, long legs and wasted muscles moving under loose black pants and an even looser blue shirt.
Glass crunches beneath his boots. He smells like cinnamon and fall, probably some concoction Milo made for bathing.
Eli jumps up and blocks him with an arm across the chest. The note flutters to the floor.
Kelter ducks below his arm and nabs the folded paper. He peeks inside. “A few cruel words won’t win her back.”
Eli snatches it from him with a loathing scowl and stuffs it in his pocket. “Don’t touch her.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Kelter shoves him and kneels next to the tall bed, resting his forearms on the bunched-up blanket around me.
“Possessive much?” I mumble loud enough for Eli to hear.
He scowls down at the top of Kelter’s head. “The twat kissed you yesterday.”
“Without my permission,” I add, setting a critical gaze on Kelt and sitting up in the bed. “And how do you accidentally merge yourself with some-one?” I look up at Eli, only letting the rage show, shoving the pain behind my glare. “With Kelter?” How could he mess everything up so thoroughly?
“Yeah, how does that happen?” Kelter asks, looking over his shoulder and up at Eli.
“We went over this yesterday. You know I don’t know.” Eli doesn’t bother to look his way. The growl in his voice holds as much contempt as his eyes.
“Of course I know. That’s the problem!” Kelter grips the back of his neck. His bony shoulders drop in resignation. He must have barely eaten for the last couple of months while locked up by the Centress. And it’s his own damn fault for getting us into this situation.
“What exactly do you know?” I ask.
“Everything!” Kelter pounds his fists on the bed. “From his creation, to his failure to make new magic. Every minute of every year locked in that cage, then feeling the burn of—”
“No,” Eli says, his cold command making my bones brittle.
Kelter’s face pinches with disgust. “And I know every pathetic childhood memory of him wondering why so many kids hated him, ran from him. Every past. Every lover. Every hand fuck in the shower. Everything.”
I almost feel bad for him, but the sting of it all is too new, too sharp. And the anger too familiar to let go of. I find Eli’s hardened face. “And you have memories of his past too?” Of the day we met? Of movies and coffee and hikes?
“No. Only from after this happened.”
“So Kelter has all your memories from every lifetime, and you only have the new ones he makes?”
“Ever, I know you’re mad,” Kelt cuts in, his more golden eye gleaming brighter today, sappy notes in his words.
“Mad does not even capture the fury in the tip of my fucking pinky finger.”
“I’ll take him out,” Eli offers.
“You don’t touch Kelter,” I say, coercing my tone into a threat.
Eli scoffs. “He lives only because I choose not to sit on his face until he takes his last ball-scented breath. For now.”
I fist the blanket. “You’re lucky you still have balls after what you’ve put me through.”
“I don’t think you could part with them at this point,” Eli says, cupping his crotch. “You’re obsessed.”
“Ugh.” I grab my hair in fistfuls. “I need to get out of this room.”
Kelter glances up at Eli’s expressionless face and back to me, unease etched in the lines across his forehead. “I was wrong to bring you here. Let me take you back to Caldera. I’ll return alone.”
“You brought her to me in exchange for sneaking you into Sonnet,” Eli says. “What makes you think I’d let you take her back without me?”
“Because it’s the safest place for her. And her home.”
Eli’s stare stabs into me. “I’m the safest place for her.”
Fuck.
I don’t even know if I’ll come out of all of this alive.
If he’s so intent on fixing the mistake that he kidnapped me because an imaginary boy insisted I could fix him, and the only remaining way to get my essence is by killing me, then what’s stopping him?
Maybe he would kill me. He’s not sane. Neither am I.
And I shouldn’t be thinking of his arms around me, the security I felt in them.
I hold my focus on Kelter, resisting the lure of Eli’s eyes.
“Caldera’s not home anymore. My life was a lie.
Our friendship was a lie. I don’t know who you are.
Either of you,” I add with a cutting look at Eli.
“Why did you leave Sonnet, Kelt? How did you end up across the border at eight years old when everyone here hates Calderans?”
Kelter’s head falls forward to the bed, sandy waves covering his arms. He speaks into the blanket. “My mother sent me to the shelter in Caldera. She said it was safer on the other side of the border.”
I smash my hands over my heart to keep it from tumbling into my lap. “You stayed in foster homes? Like me?”
“Not as many as you.”
“Because you were safer away from here?” Away from the beatings and torture?
“No.” Reluctance draws out the word. “Because Sonnet was safer without me.”