21
The bedchamber tilts around me.
The air is rushing against me from all angles, disorientating, as I try to push up from the chaise. But my legs give out, and I land back down with a choked breath.
“What?” My own voice is muffled to me, distant, like it comes from the other end of a ballroom. “What does that mean? What does that mean?”
Vaguely, I’m aware of Oliver’s hands on my shoulders, like he’s pushing me back down onto the chaise, and holding me there.
Father’s words bounce around the echo, so far away, “You were born strong. So strong, Olivia. You were glowing with power. But Oliver was dull and poorly—”
“I’m so sorry, Liv.” Oliver’s rushed words warp around me, his face, too. “It’s the way it has to be. It’s the way this world works.”
Father dips into my watery vision, abandoning the armchair, and all of a sudden, I blink tears that roll down my cheeks and slip over my lips, and Father is there, next to me on the chaise.
He steals my hand, the bandaged one, and holds it carefully.
“The son cannot be the weak one,” he says. “The heir cannot be ailing.”
“Please understand,” Oliver’s hand tightens on mine, and he reaches for my face, wipes away the tears that fall numbly, “there was no other way. The ritual had to be done. Father had no choice. They had to syphon your power—into me. It was the only way.”
I can hear my heartbeat thumping in my ears.
It dizzies me.
“We didn’t intend to drain all of it,” Father’s urgent whisper hisses around my spinning head, “but rituals can be unpredictable. We stopped before you could become sickly, but it wasn’t soon enough. The magic was gone from your blood.”
And into Oliver’s.
I was strong.
I was…
I was the alchemist child.
Oh.
My.
Gods.
The room spins, violent.
I wrench my hands out of theirs and, dazed, stagger off the chaise.
My feet ache through the disorientation swirling in my head.
“You’re not a krum,” Oliver’s pleading voice comes from somewhere behind me.
I stagger, aimless, until a coil of nausea purses my mouth.
I almost think it’s better being a krum.
I came to terms with that over time.
I grieved my witchiness, my deadblood status, and accepted that, for whatever, ridiculous unfathomable reason, my parents adopted a krum and passed her off as a deadblood.
I never thought about this…
This violation.
It’s worse.
It’s so much worse.
My body doubles over and a wretched, coarse heave surges through me.
Hands grab at me, tackle me by the shoulders, then a chest is pressed against my back.
It’s all so distant and unusual, like I know it’s Oliver pulling me into his arms, his murmured words echoing through the room, but that I’m also drifting away—out of my body, through the broken windows patched up with wood, and off into the skies…
My brother holds me.
My brother by blood.
By magic. My magic.
My own parents drained it out of me—a violation, a theft that I can’t even begin to comprehend.
I think I’m screaming. Or crying.
My mouth is open, and I feel my throat thrumming with a sound, but I don’t hear it.
I just start to sink down to the floor.
Oliver comes down with me, his arms wrapped around me, and he mutters excuses into my hair.
Father crouches in front of me.
The sincere panic is written all over his face—and I want to claw it off with my fucking nails.
I’m definitely screaming now. Right in his face, like a feral animal.
Then a blur shifts around me, Mr Younge with a phial. Hands are grabbing at my face, prying my mouth apart, then I feel it, the cold pour of bitterness down my throat.
They drug me.
Again, they take from me. Steal.
The life I have lived…
The power I should have had.
Oliver has everything that is mine.
It’s the thought that clings to my mind as my body starts to sag in Oliver’s arms.
Murmurs brush all around me.
I don’t understand a word of what’s being said.
The ceiling lurches closer. Arms are scooped under me, and I’m lifted off the floor.
I dangle, staring at the trim of the ceiling, the chandelier that glistens.
I’m limp in Oliver’s arms all the way to the bed, where he sets me down gently.