Chapter 5
EVER
It's about time. Thank you, Ever.
Wonderful. Now I’m hearing voices to go with the visions. I’ve lost it.
You’re not crazy.
I might prefer to be, I mutter in my thoughts. Who have I decided you are?
Ametrine, the creator of this world.
Of course. I see death and hear the goddess of creation. What a cruel, poetic mind I have.
Oh, cut the sass, she says lightly. You’ve got my death stone tucked in your hand. That’s no accident.
Death stone?
It’s where the soul goes after death.
I rub my thumb over the surface. It’s the one thing I’ve always known. A constant. Something I could trust. Is this what causes my visions?
No, but it is related to your essence.
My essence is like a curse! I snap, all patience with my hallucination lost.
She drops her soothing tone. Your essence is needed to save the world I created!
Apparently, I’m more desperate to find an alternate reality than I thought. But not this one. Fumbling through the darkness surrounding me, I force my hand open. The gray light of the room returns as I fasten the chain around my neck, the fused stone heavy on my chest.
Eli tries to break into my mind with those eyes of his. I look away, but he still slips deeper than I allow.
The door creaks, and we turn our backs to my mother. Milo peeks into the room, sliding his gaze to my legs, likely confirming I’ve managed to put on pants. “We have a problem.”
“Worse than this?” Eli gestures toward the bloody mess behind us.
“They’re looking for us.”
“Who?” Eli’s muscles tense, deepening the definition along his arms… that I shouldn’t be noticing.
“Everyone in Sonnet. They’re searching the woods for the Centress and all of us.” Milo grips his hair, blonde tips poking past his knuckles. “They cut off Sola’s hands to sever her magic, then left her alive as a message. Coen found her like that.”
“Fuckers.” Eli punches his palm hard enough to make me jump.
“They won’t stop until they find me. And her.” My mother stares me down. “Vaile are trained to unite and fight against traitors.”
“Coen says we have to move now before they’re everywhere,” Milo says, his voice cracking with urgency.
Eli’s jaw shifts. His thumb taps the blade of his knife at his side. Nerves. The kind he doesn’t like to show. But I see them. And his pain, how he’s devising a plan to protect his friends. “Get your shit and find Sypher and Kaleida. We’re going to Caldera.”
“What? No,” I say. Not the right plan. “I’m not going back there.”
“You are.”
“How am I supposed to stop you all from drugging Calderans and fix the imbalance of magic and find my father and… and…” I gasp. How do I go back there and face the life I lost?
Eli’s stern eyes capture mine. “You can’t do any of that if you’re dead.”
“I don’t want to go to Caldera.” I look up from lacing my boots to watch Eli load marbles into the ammo pockets on his suspenders.
The practiced motion of his fingers over the diagonal strap across his chest is distracting.
I know what those fingers are capable of.
“And I’m sure your friends don’t want to go either.
They probably blame you for all of this. ”
We’re back in Milo’s colorful bedroom, the gray light of late morning pouring through the sheer curtains.
I stare at Eli long enough to notice his bandage is gone, no more than a faint scar left across his neck.
He picks up a sheathed knife from a pile he dumped onto the dresser and slips it through a loop in the suspenders strap.
Then another. And six more. Perfectly aligned.
The final three end up in his boots and tucked behind his back.
His chest is covered in steel but none of them are his knife.
The one he always carries. That sliced off my clothes.
That he held to my neck. That slit his throat. That knife stays in his pocket.
“They do blame me,” he says. “But they only see my light side, so they may complain, but they’ll agree and do whatever I say.”
“Convenient.”
“Put these on.” Eli dangles metal cuffs in front of me.
A dry laugh forms in my throat. “Right.” I rise and step aside, aiming for the hallway behind him.
He follows my movement, blocking me. “Now.”
My jaw trembles with how hard I clench my teeth. “You’re serious. Does it turn you on to piss me off?”
“It does.”
I scrunch my face at him, refraining from glancing down at his crotch—to confirm. “Why would I put those on?”
“Besides for my entertainment? You’re still a flight risk, especially with Kelter around to help you run. As much as I’d enjoy it, now is not the time to be chasing you.”
“Why would I run? You have my mother, and she has the answers about my father.” My useless heart expands. I’m holding on too tightly to the idea that he might not be as dreadful as her—but not to hope. That’d be foolish.
“Everyone in Sonnet knows to look for your eyes by now. They give you away in an instant. If we’re seen by anyone and outnumbered, our best chance is convincing them it was all an act and that we were working for the Centress.
We need a good explanation, and it’d better be really fucking clear that you’re my prisoner, or we’ll have no chance of lying our way out. So put the damn cuffs on.”
“Fine.” I snatch the cuffs from him, fighting to ignore the rush of images from the last time he had them tight around my wrists. I clamp one side then struggle to capture my other wrist. “Happy now?” I thrust my wrists forward, pulling taut the few metal links between them.
“Not yet.” He shoves a hand in his pocket and pulls out a chain.
I step back. “What’s that for?”
“So I don’t have to touch you.” He loops it around the links between my wrists and takes both loose ends in his hand.
“That’s how you think of me now? I’m untouchable?” But it’s hard to hold onto my anger with his light aura so strong. A gentle wind curls around my ankles and travels up the back of my legs, subduing me instantly.
“Yes.”
His response hurts more than it should. “And what about Kelter?”
“I don’t want to touch him either.”
Difficult man. “I mean, what if he’s recognized?”
He slings a pack over his shoulder. “I doubt we need to worry about him. He’s forgettable.”
“He is not. Don’t be an ass.”
“Either way, he’ll be cuffed too.”
“I bet he’s thrilled about that,” I mutter.
“Come on, little prisoner.” He yanks the chain and heads toward the door, sending me stumbling after him.
I pull back on it. “Don’t call me that.”
He flips around and winds it around his fist until we’re inches apart. “You’re in chains and at my mercy. What do you want me to call you?”
My heart beats at triple speed with his closeness. I lift a single finger, idling a tap away in indecision, then force the contact he refuses to make. I twist my wrist and clamp my hand over his fist.
His body goes rigid. His eyes strain. A gargled grunt makes it past his clenched jaw. He tears his hands away, gasping, and falls on his ass.
“Eli!” My anger slips into concern.
“Look at you using my name,” he says through punctured breaths.
“What just happened?”
He collects himself, settling into a more dignified position for a man who leaks control from his pores, unbothered by the glass still littering the carpet and no black blood in sight. “That, little tormenter, was your mother’s magic.”
“What?”
“Her gift of pain,” he explains, as if I could forget about it.
“I have it now? You’re not even surprised.” My shaking hands rattle the cuffs. “You knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
His shrug infuriates me as much as his words. “Your temper is bad enough without you knowing what your hands are capable of.”
Not a word solidifies on my tongue. I fall to my knees.
The glass doesn’t even phase me this time.
Air finds its way in and out of my lungs, and blood chugs through my veins, the only parts of me that remember how to function.
I fold myself up small and tuck my hands between my knees. But the vision still hits.
The ivy I tore from the walls glows and surrounds me, white magic shooting from thorns.
But the light darkens before reaching my chest. Black spears pierce my heart.
Dozens of them. And in my final moment, my last stuttering breath, death tricks me.
Darkness slithers into my veins, forcing me to live, to go on breathing, swallowing shadows.
The vision fades, leaving my senses prickling. I sit in silence, Eli breathing heavily two feet away, until I can’t feel the dust in the air settling on my skin anymore, or the whine of regrowing ivy, the sensations more intense than ever before.
“I need a bath,” I say, my voice small and distant. I’m still a muddy, bloody mess from the last few days. I can’t wash away the violent magic I took from my mother, but maybe I can lift the stain she left on my soul.