Chapter Thirty-One
THIRTY-ONE
I spring into action and dash to the bathroom to grab the first clean towel I can find. I’m standing in front of him before he’s finished closing my bedroom door, still holding the dagger by the blade.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh my god, sit down!
’ I pull him by the shoulders and bring him to the edge of my bed.
He doesn’t protest, or shout at me like I expect him to.
Instead, he lets me sit him down and lay the towel on his lap as I kneel at his feet and inspect his wound.
‘What are you doing here? You didn’t knock.
Why didn’t you knock?’ I start to ramble, horrified as blood continues to well in between his fingers.
I gasp as he slowly opens his hand. ‘T-that’s a lot of blood. Fuck. Shit. That is a lot of blood.’
The blade has cut deep across the palm of his hand as well as his last three fingers.
I feel his eyes on me as I push down my panic with a groan and order him to hold still.
Not that he’s moved at all in the last minute, he just sits there, staring at my face while I slowly pull the dagger from his skin and lay it on the bed next to him.
The bloodied blade starts to stain the blanket, but I couldn’t care less as guilt threatens to swallow me up.
Stars, what if he hadn’t reacted as quickly as he did and caught it?
I’d be pulling the dagger from his face, not his hand.
The fact that I’m so rattled by the prospect of hurting him shakes me to my core. A strange emotion settles in my throat as I picture his lifeless eyes staring up at me with the dagger I stole protruding from his head.
Quickly, I push the towel into his hand.
‘Hold this and keep pressure on it.’
I rise to my feet and rush to my bathroom, delving into the cabinet beneath the sink.
Miscellaneous items clatter to the floor beside my legs as I dig for the box at the back.
Once my fingers wrap around the edges, I run back to the room, skidding to a stop in front of Sebastian, and drop back to my knees.
I open it up and try to ignore the bloodied fingerprints I’m leaving all over it.
‘It’s going to need stitches,’ I tell him as I pull out a needle and a thread, holding them both up for him to see.
Again, he doesn’t say anything, just watches me with a calm expression that unnerves the hell out of me.
Why isn’t he yelling? He should be yelling.
He could have died! I want to scream at him to say something, but I need to get his wounds closed before he bleeds out, on my bed of all places, and I really am found guilty of murder.
I place the needle and thread back in the box as I see the towel starting to darken with his blood and instead pull out a glass bottle that’s wedged in right next to the jar Tilly gave me for my face.
I mentally thank my past self for packing a box full of my mother’s healing tinctures.
Not only did they help after the incident in the tunnel, but they’re going to do a whole lot of help right now.
‘I’m going to need you to open your hand. Once you do, I’ll take the towel away and I need you to keep your hand open so I can drop this onto your wounds.’
‘What is it?’ Stars. He finally speaks.
‘It’ll help stop the bleeding or at least slow it down.
But I should warn you that it’ll hurt.’ He looks down at his hand and then back at me dryly.
‘Right.’ I nod in understanding. ‘You’re already in pain.
’ I internally cringe and shuffle forward on my knees, then unscrew the lid and pull out the dropper. It’s filled with brownish-gold liquid.
‘All right, you can open your hand now,’ I instruct him, hovering the dropper over his hand.
He opens it slowly. His lips forming a hard line is the only indication that it causes him pain; other than that, he sits stoic and still.
Like a statue observing what is happening to him, rather than feeling it.
It pools in his palm, mixing with the blood and staining his skin.
Sebastian’s fingers flex as the last of the liquid is dripped onto them and I know it must be stinging.
‘The first time my mom used this on me, I cried,’ I tell him, remembering the burning sensation as it began to clot the blood.
‘Where?’ he asks, as the blood starts to slow.
It’s working. Thank the Stars!
‘Where what?’ I ask as I replace the lid on the jar and pop it back into the box. I pick up the needle and thread once again.
‘Where were you hurt?’
‘My leg.’ I hold the needle out toward him. ‘Do you mind sterilising this with your um—’ I gesture to his other hand. ‘Element.’
A subtle smirk twitches the corner of his mouth before he raises his good hand, and a small flame appears at the tip of his index finger. I can’t help the little gasp that escapes my lips as I hold the needle over the flame, letting it lick at the metal.
‘That should be good,’ I say, pulling it away and threading the needle. We sit in silence as I make quick work of tying the knot at the end and break off the remaining thread.
My fingers brush his as I move closer – they’re warm against mine. The sudden heat makes me jolt a little. ‘I’m really sorry.’ I feel compelled to apologise again. This is my fault after all. I should have locked the door. What if it had been Lillian?
‘I know you are,’ he says, catching me off guard.
‘Are you mad?’
‘Livid.’
I gulp.
‘But we’ll get to how you managed to get your hands on one of Nicks’s daggers later. Right now, I need you to stitch me up before my adrenaline wears off.’
‘I didn’t mean are you mad about the dagger!’ I scoff. ‘I meant this.’ I point to his hand with the needle.
‘Stitches, Nocthare. Now!’ Then after a breath, he adds in a softer tone. ‘Please.’
My tongue feels heavy as I nod and buckle down.
The first pinch of the needle makes me flinch.
Meanwhile he doesn’t move a muscle. I work in silence, using the soft even breaths coming from Sebastian to calm my heart rate and focus.
Only after I’ve snipped off the thread and tied the knot, moving on from his palm to the first of the three fingers, does he speak again.
‘Who taught you to do this?’
‘My dad.’ I find myself answering honestly.
It was back when he gave me the time of day because he didn’t know I couldn’t wield yet.
‘I think I was eight when he showed me what to do. We were at home. Mom and Lukas were out somewhere, I can’t remember where.
But I was in the yard picking herbs from the garden when I heard him yell out to me.
He had dropped a mirror that he was trying to move for my mom and a huge piece of it sliced into his hand. It was similar to this, actually.’
‘And he made you stitch it up? At eight?’
My shoulders lift in a shrug. ‘I wanted to help. I thought the experience would make me a great healer one day.’
That gives him pause. ‘I remember that,’ he says quietly. ‘You wanted to be in the Healer Unit like your parents.’
This time it’s me who goes quiet. I move onto the second finger, not trusting myself to respond. I can’t talk about him knowing what I used to be like, because that makes me remember what he used to be like, and I can’t go there. I just can’t.
I’d rather stab myself with my own dagger than talk about it and reminisce on old times with him. But it seems Sebastian isn’t done talking just yet. My stomach sinks.
‘Why did you pick Malachite when you could have been placed in Opal?’
My hands start to shake. The third finger only needs about three stitches, so it’s not too bad. I ignore his question and retie the thread, before starting on the last finger.
‘Nocthare?’ He pushes the question and again, I ignore him, focusing on threading the needle through his skin.
‘Arianell!’
I freeze. My hands still just as I pull the last stitch tight. My eyes stay trained on his hand, even as my breaths start to quicken and my chin begins to tremble.
Don’t cry. It’s just a name. It doesn’t mean anything. Stars, do not cry!
I bite the inside of my cheek to reel my emotions back in.
But then he goes and destroys me by gently grabbing my jaw with his good hand and lifting it up, forcing my eyes to meet his.
There are a myriad of words I could use to describe the feelings that run through me as I take note of the swirls of green that look back at me.
Yet none of the feelings fill my veins as much as fear.
Fear of being this close to him. Fear of seeing the emotion in his gaze.
Fear of forgetting how angry I am with him.
And yet the thought of him being harmed by my hand caused so much panic to swirl inside of me. Fear of what that panic could mean …
‘Why did you choose Malachite?’ he asks once more. This time it’s quiet and full of what I could almost mistake for tenderness.
It takes me a moment to find my voice. Because I don’t want him to hear the vulnerability in it when I speak.
There’s already too much of it in my eyes and I hate that he’s seen it.
I swallow and pull away from his gentle grasp and take out a roll of bandages from the box.
‘You’ll need to wrap your hand in this.’ I hold it out to him but when he doesn’t take it, I put it on his lap and get up.
With shaking hands, I dart to the bathroom and turn the faucet on and start to scrub the blood on my hands.
The water turns a light shade of pink as it swirls down the drain.
I scrub well after it’s run clear, just hoping for a little extra time to compose myself.
But of course, Sebastian doesn’t stay put where I left him.
I see him at the threshold to the bathroom through the corner of my eye, his hand now wrapped in the white bandage as he leans his shoulder against the door frame.
I turn the faucet off and grip the edge of the sink.
‘What do you want, Zain?’ I ask, feeling deflated.
‘I want you to answer my question.’
‘Why?’ I turn and lean my hip against the cold porcelain. ‘Why does it matter? You don’t even want me here.’
‘That’s not—’ he starts to say but cuts himself off with a shake of his head. Tension tugs at the corners of his lips.
‘What were you going to say?’
‘Nothing. Forget I even asked.’ He walks out of the doorway, leaving me standing there utterly confused.
One minute he’s hounding me to answer him and the next he’s telling me to forget about it.
He needs to pick a damn lane and stay there because I’m starting to get whiplash from his sudden mood changes.
I stomp after him but halt when I spot him picking up the dagger from my bed. ‘I’m taking this.’ He wipes the blood off on the leg of his pants before he sheaths it in his waistband.
‘What? No!’ I protest. ‘You can’t take it, it’s mine.’ A lie.
‘Please, I’ve spent more time in that Training Centre than I have in my own bed. Do you really think I wouldn’t recognise one of Nicks’s training daggers?’
‘I need it!’ I shout, almost sounding desperate.
Because I am.
He shoots me a pointed look, and I start to scramble for a reason that would convince him to let me keep it. In the end, I go with the truth.
‘You were right the other night. I’m not safe and I can’t defend myself, not with my magic anyway. I’m a walking target and I’m sick of it.’ My eyes fall to where the dagger is concealed within his waistband. ‘I just wanted something that would help me fight back. So, I stole it.’
He stares at me for a long moment. I can see the conflict swirling in his eyes as he debates what he should do.
The air crackles between us as we stand only a few feet from each other.
How we can go so quickly from soft spoken voices as I stitch his hand back together to practically yelling in each other’s faces is beyond me.
The breath he lets out is full of frustration.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he mutters as he reaches beneath his shirt and pulls the dagger out by the hilt. He flips it around and hands it to me, pinching the blade between his fingers. ‘You can keep it, for now. I’ll work on getting you another one that doesn’t belong to Nicks.’
I’m already nodding as I take it from him.
‘Don’t lose it. I mean it. The second he realises it’s gone, he’ll search everyone’s room to find it, and I won’t bail you out if he finds out it was you.’
Noted.
‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’