22. Chapter 22 #3
Twenty-seven years ago, after she’d killed her husband, with Sybil’s help, she’d cursed her own heart, thrown it into the well, and slowly poisoned the entirety of Mortdale.
Agnes was smart—too smart. The Madness had never truly been a curse, only a symptom of it; a dark root slowly poisoning chaos without leaving any single trace of magic.
Any vampire and witch who'd fallen in love had been infected by the curse. It led to a witch taking their own life, and their vampire lover slowly going insane from heartbreak, infected with despair. It wasn’t madness, it wasn’t rage.
It had always been heartbreak—the symptoms of a love curse without actually being cursed.
Cassandra and her husband—they’d been some of the many who’d died because of Agnes.
All this time, the answer had been staring at me.
Cassandra had asked me to leave Logan. It had been to protect him from the same fate she’d succumbed to.
When had she known that I’d started imagining myself falling in love with him?
Cross my heart and hope to die. The words echoed from that day. The promise she had made me for Ethel’s safety. The lie she’d so easily sold me so she could justify fulfilling Logan’s demand. It had never been about solving their deaths. I was only something that had been standing in her way.
I walked backwards until my spine hit the stony walls of the well. “What has she done to Ethel?”
“Your friend is safe.”
“She’s at the coven?”
He nodded.
“Cross your heart and hope to die?”
The creature angled his head to the side, taking a few more steps in my direction. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
His head swung back with a crack, twisting at an odd angle, as the kerosene Liam was pouring down on him from the roof of the Basilica drenched him.
Just as Liam dropped a lit match on him, I pushed off the rocky wall and jumped into the well. The cold water broke against my skin like a thousand pieces of glass. Only darkness filled the periphery of my vision that was starting to blur from a chill that shook my bones.
Unconsciousness gripped my mind in a static hold, letting me float in and out of my body. Until something warm pulsed in the depth of the water, stirring me awake.
A white familiar phantom floated farther down the clear waters, guiding my weak body patiently. Cassandra held a hand forward, letting me hold onto it until I could finally see the rocky dregs.
At the very bottom lay a heart, blackened and still beating. Dark veins grew from it, spreading over the entire floor of the well bed. They climbed for metres, farther and farther into the darkness around. And only the Goddess knew how far they went into the earth.
I could feel my lungs burning, searching for air, but I kept swimming until my fingernails scraped against the rocky bottom of the well and I could wrap my hand around the soft, charred organ.
I pulled and pulled with all my might, screaming into the vacuum of water when it wouldn’t pare off the rocky bottom. How deep had its roots spread? Was it too late? Had it always been too late?
My mind fought and fought, but my body slowly slackened, surrendering to the arms of the icy waters. I expected relief to flood my veins as I yielded, as I stopped fighting for the first time in my existence. As I stopped fighting to live. But there was no relief. Only terror and pure agony.
And then the water shifted, a large hand covering mine, pulling the heart.
His whole body enveloped mine, trapping me between his strong arms as he tugged hard until both the heart and the stone came undone.
Holding me against his chest, he pushed against the waters, swimming for the surface.
I felt warm, safe. Not entirely hopeless.
I wanted to live—so desperately I felt sick.
The first breath was always the hardest. I could understand why we came into the world screaming. My lungs were filled with rage, for letting air flood their chambers.
He laid me down on the ground, running his hands all over me, cradling my face, skimming my arms, brushing the matted hair off my eyes. He was panting, water dripping from his hair. A drop on my eyelids, another against my lips.
I closed my eyes, smiling. I loved rain. Especially when it smelled like him.
“Don’t,” he said, and I forced them open. “Not until I know you’re okay. You can close them when I know you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
He dropped to the ground, sprawling on his back next to me. We were both still breathing hard, white mist evaporating from our mouths. Every inch of our limbs soaked and cold and matted with silt.
As the morning sun broke through the surface to colour the skies in lilac and orange, he turned on his side, cupping my face with a hand and bracing his forehead against mine. “Reckless witch. Ridiculous witch.”
He climbed on top of me, caging my waist between his thighs as he undid his tie and grabbed my hands to bind them together with it.
I blinked fast. “What are you doing?”
Shaking his wet handkerchief, she bunched it up and shoved it in my mouth.
“I will lock you in the fucking cellar if it means keeping you safe. Do you know what it would have cost you if you’d cast one more spell?
” he asked, his wet eyes pacing between mine as his shaking palm hit his chest. “Do you know what it would have cost me?”