Chapter 2 #2
It’s a good call. This place is dangerous enough during the daylight.
It’s silent on the ground floor, with not a soul to be found.
My footsteps echo off the walls, and it feels like the sound is too loud for the space.
I follow the faint glow of a lantern in the kitchen.
Even before I step into the room, I’m hit with a deep sense of recognition in my gut.
Somehow, I just know that Reva’s inside.
To me, she’s still the person etched into the other side of my soul, even if I’m no longer a piece of hers.
The kitchen is an old-fashioned one, like a larger version of my mum’s kitchen back on the farm. There’s a large wooden table in the centre of the room and a huge ceramic sink by one wall, with wooden countertops and cupboards all around the edges.
Once I get close enough for the lantern light to shine over her, I can see that she’s been in the water again.
She’s soaking wet.
My mind and body both riot as I stare at the thick ropes of hair clinging to her damp back and the way her clothes are wrinkled and sitting skin-tight.
How am I supposed to cope with speaking to her while she’s wet? I can barely handle her dry without wanting to touch her, taste her, to suck on her toes or whatever else she wants so that I can worship her.
I want her to climb inside my mind so she can see I never meant to hurt her.
“You’re still up,” she says, sounding surprised.
As if I’d be able to go to bed without knowing what she wants to speak to me about. After all, tomorrow she might have changed her mind.
It’s not like I sleep all that much even when the crew aren’t disturbing me.
Too many nightmares to keep at bay. All the ones that had been on the back-burner of my mind have waded their way forward after seeing the sorceress again.
Most nights, I wind up slipping into a restless doze where I’m convinced I’m still trapped in the dark basement, that I never escaped and the past weeks have all been a fever dream.
I don’t tell Reva that though. We started off on different pages when we first met. Not just because of me losing control of my magic and tying her to me with a false bond, either.
She felt sorry for me. Pitied me.
Because I was pretty pitiable. Pathetic, really.
But I’m going to do better. To be better. And maybe if she deigns to give me another chance at being someone to her, we can be different too.
Her sealskin is resting on the back of a chair, and I can’t stop myself from staring at it.
“I wanted to ask you about my skin,” she says. “I was hoping you could inspect it. See if you think there’s any way of getting Noush back.”
For a moment, I’m silent. It’s no small thing for her to ask of me or to trust me with, and a kernel of something joyous sparks inside me.
Maybe I’m her only option for fixing things. But I don’t care. This is her trusting me in some way, and I’m never going to take that for granted.
“May I... may I touch it?” I ask hesitantly, perching on the table beside her.
She blinks at me, eyes glittering in the lantern light. “My skin?”
I’d touch anything she wanted me to, to wash her hair and massage her tense shoulders, if it seemed like something she might want.
But I’ll settle for touching her sealskin.
Biting my tongue, I nod.
“It’s, er, strange,” I say, clearing my throat. “Talking like this.”
Because we no longer need to touch to communicate. That sense of connection between us is broken.
“It is,” she replies softly. She’s not looking at me, though. Instead, she’s staring at the tabletop and looking so damn melancholy, it feels like someone’s squeezing my chest in a vice.
“You can touch it,” she says.
I fight the urge to suck in a breath. I haven’t forgotten that the last time I touched her skin, our false bond formed.
And the last time anyone else touched it, they drained the magic from her skin.
She swallows hard. But then she nods again, dropping her skin into my lap. I run one hand over the length of it, stroking it gently, once, twice, and then I can’t seem to stop my other hand from joining in.
“It’s like velvet,” I murmur. “Not that I’ve felt much velvet before.”
Reva’s lips twitch for a second before flattening again.
“It shines in the light too,” I say, the words tripping off my tongue with no control on my part. “Beautiful.”
“Noush would be preening right now,” she replies. “She knows she’s gorgeous.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” I say quietly, keeping my head tucked down so I can’t see her reaction to my words.
Now that I’m no longer suppressing it, my magic sits pooled just beneath my ribs, waiting for me to call on it. Keeping my eyes focused on the skin in front of me, I flick the pool as if with my fingertips and draw on a steady stream of magic. I then continue to flick my magic onto Reva’s skin.
I don’t really know what I’m doing here, looking for any spark of life, I suppose. If there’s magic still in there, I’d expect the droplets of my magic to get absorbed.
Instead, I get hit with a taste right at the back of my throat. Something thick and claggy slides down my throat, like black sludge tinged with something faintly herbal and the tang of copper.
Blood.
In an instant, I’m back there. The cold seeping into my flesh until my chest rattles and my bones ache. The constant hunger and loneliness, and misery as I’m drained of everything. Every good memory and feeling seeps out of me until there’s nothing left.
I’m stuck there in the dark, my chest growing tight as I fight to suck in a full breath. But my mouth fills with cobwebs and spiders, and they’re choking me.
The floor is so cold, my teeth are chattering. But then there’s warmth on my leg. Have I pissed myself?
Well, wouldn’t that just be wonderful? She only lets me wash once a week, if she remembers. I’ll be stuck here, marinating in filth and urine, for days.
But the warmth shifts, moving in a slow, rhythmic motion. Spiders don’t do that. Nor does piss.
It feels... it feels kind of like a hand. Like someone is stroking my knee.
I snap my eyes open and I’m back on the beach. Two hazel eyes peer into mine as a cool hand cups my jaw.
I’m safe.
Reva’s hand is on my thigh and she’s leaning so close I can feel her breath on my cheek. The scent of vanilla and oranges fills my nose, replacing the sorceress's stench. But then there’s a tingle of warmth beneath my fingertips, so subtle I almost think I’m imagining it.
“Aster? Are you all right?”
I give a jerky nod. “I, uh, felt it. Felt her magic draining your skin.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to look at it.” Her face is pinched and filled with anxiety.
And this is exactly what I didn’t want. More worry. More pity.
I swallow down all the spiders in my throat and shake off the lingering sense of cold that seems to have settled deep inside me.
“It’s all right.” I shake my head at her incredulous expression. “It just reminded me of being there. Being stuck there,” I tell her.
“Well, thanks for trying.” She gives me an exhausted smile. “But we’re never doing that again.”
Shifting back until I’m sitting with her skin still pooled in my lap, I carefully wrap it around her shoulders.
“I felt something, Reva,” I say. “Something that wasn’t just the sorceress’s magic.” Licking my lips, I say the next words softly enough that she leans in to hear them. “I think Noush is still in there.”
Her face flits through half a dozen emotions before she settles on a hesitant smile. “Yeah?”
I nod, squeezing the fingers that are still resting on my thigh. “We can try again.”
For her, I’d revisit the basement a thousand times.
She gives me a soft smile and squeezes my thigh again before getting to her feet. “Well, thank you. I should—” She jerks her head to the door. “—get some sleep. You should too.”
That small smile is enough to send me off with a warmth fighting off the chill in the air. She might not forgive me yet, but there’s a spark of something more powerful than magic in my chest.
Hope.