Chapter 30
Eira leads us to a locked room – so much for the captives being here willingly – and provides us with a rusty key.
The chamber is small, filled with party decorations on one side and the captives huddled on the other.
Yvette sits away from the group, but trembles in unison with them when they catch sight of Eira hovering in the doorway, biting her lip and refusing to look them in the eye, as though unable to face the evidence of all she did to earn Damian’s favour.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell them. ‘She won’t hurt you.
We’re here to help.’ I kneel before Yvette.
‘I don’t think I can take your hex away.
But I can try to limit its effects. I’ll create healing balms for anyone who touches you, and fashion you some gloves.
Nicer ones than Damian’s. I’ll make them as thin as possible so you can still feel something. ’
‘How will you do that?’ she whispers.
Oh. Right. I take a deep breath and glance at Astin, who nods. But I don’t need his permission. I was hiding from myself just as much as I was hiding from him and the rest of the world.
I’m not hiding what I am any more though. I can do things to be proud of, because of it.
‘I can help you,’ I say, ‘because I’m a Souleater.
Wait –’ I hasten to add as she scrambles away, eyes wide and terrified, while the group in the corner do the same after a collective gasp.
‘No. No, I’m a witch. You don’t have to be afraid of me, or of magic.
Sometimes it can be used for good. You’ll see.
I need each and every one of you to tell me about your hexes, however many there may be, and I will find a way to help you, as best I can. You can trust me.’
But they don’t. Of course they don’t. The stories they grew up with are too ingrained in them for one girl to change their opinion. I suppose it would help if I wasn’t wearing clothes splattered with blood, and I don’t want to contemplate what my hair is doing.
‘Here.’ Astin joins me on the floor and extends his arm. The skin where Yvette touched him is red and blistered. ‘Heal me first. Let them watch.’
For all my big talk, I’m still figuring out how to do all this.
But some part of it feels innate, like the magic I have now is eager to be used, to help.
I remember how overcome I’d felt when we first arrived in Rerta, surrounded by all that light and laughter and joy, and wonder if my body instinctively knew then what I’d achieve if only I could access those emotions.
I grab a goblet from the table and envision what I need from my magic: not something to defend, or to attack, but to heal.
Immediately, gold smoke wafts in the air, but rather than morphing into a wraith, it streams into the glass, turning into a kind of paste.
I dip a finger inside, and the paste is warm against my skin. It smells faintly of roses.
I smear the paste over Astin’s burn, and instantly, the skin changes from red to pink. Not healed, not quite, but something much closer, like the injury is weeks or months old instead of minutes. Yvette’s lips part.
‘See? I can help you. All of you.’
The captives still look wary, but less so than before, like a feral animal realising humans aren’t always scary. We come with treats. Or, in my case, magic. Light magic.
I beam at them, then Astin, pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘Looks like you get to be healer after all. Your emotions are the magic. I’m just the conduit.’
He rubs his thumb over the gold bands on my fingers, noting one has already faded. ‘Good job I’ve got enough to keep you replenished.’
‘Careful. That almost sounded like you’re admitting you have feelings.’
‘It did, didn’t it?’ He smiles softly, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, but before he can say anything else, footfall sounds outside.
For a moment, I expect Damian to burst through the doors, shattered emeralds at his feet, but instead Eira steps aside for Nuri and Cale, who are both panting and sweating profusely.
I tense. Given they’ve added at least six knives to their collection, I get the impression they’re not here to begin the party early.
‘Is it over? Are we too late?’ Nuri pushes her braids away from her face. ‘Where’s the potion?’
‘Um. It kind of . . . got covered in emerald. I don’t think we’ll be seeing it again.’
‘Oh.’ She slumps against Cale’s side. ‘Well, that’s good. I would’ve arrived sooner, but it took me a while to . . .’ She glances around the room, as though assessing who’s here, before addressing me again. ‘Can I talk to you? Alone?’
Astin looks set to protest, but I silence him with another kiss. There’s nothing threatening in Nuri’s scent, so I lead her out of the chamber and, for lack of better ideas, into the room with Damian’s statue.
‘It wasn’t me,’ I tell her quickly, gesturing at him. Although he remains frozen solid, I’m convinced his eyes follow me wherever I go. It’s a relief to turn my back on him and tap the chest full of gold. ‘We can share this, if you like. Take as much as you and Cale need.’
She hoists herself on to the table until her legs are dangling inches from the floor. ‘Oh, he’ll be delighted. But I didn’t enter for the reward. I just wanted to hide that potion.’
I frown. As far as everyone knows, that potion is a cure for being a Souleater. The only people who’d want to hide it are . . .
She lifts up a sleeve to reveal a gold swirl on her inner wrist, more vibrant than the ones on my fingers. My mouth parts.
She grins. ‘Fooled you, didn’t I? Soulchomper.’
But . . . she can’t be. Not only because it’s embarrassing that I believed her inability to learn their name was down to naivety on her part, but because she’s so . . . normal. I told her I wasn’t like other Souleaters, when, in reality, maybe I’m just like the majority of them.
Just like her.
‘I would’ve told you one of those times I saw you in Rerta, but you were so agitated I didn’t think you’d agree to go for a nice walk with me, and I couldn’t blurt it out in front of Cale.
He doesn’t know. Not yet. You know how people can be.
’ Her good humour lessens. ‘Maybe one day. Some humans aren’t so bad. ’ She rubs the gold mark on her arm.
I’ve seen her with one, before, I realise. She was trying to cover it up with that awful cardigan at Damian’s party. ‘You’ve had light magic all along.’
‘You can just call it magic, you know. This is how it’s supposed to be. And who do you think helped you in the maze?’
I’d seen a flash of gold among my shadows. I thought I’d done it, but it was her.
‘I used the rest of my magic healing everyone who’d been hurt that night. That’s why I couldn’t stop you running off with the items on the mountain. I only managed to replenish this morning.’
Without an Astin at her disposal, I wonder how she ever had light magic at all – regular magic, to her, I suppose, but after everything it’ll always feel light to me. ‘Where do you . . . I mean, how do you . . . ?’
‘Get my magic?’ Nuri studies me, taking in my expression. ‘Didn’t you have anyone in your family to teach you anything?’
‘No. I’m the first since my great-great-granduncle. I never met him.’
I never even had the nerve to properly read his diaries.
And now I know Howard wasn’t deranged, or lying.
He’d mentioned everything being golden, that his partner had smiled after he’d channelled him.
It was only when Gregory mistook the charmmark for a hex that he panicked.
When I return to the inn, I’ll pore over the contents and learn everything I can.
Howard doesn’t need to be a shameful secret, a stain on our family’s history we keep shoved in a box, not any more.
‘There’s lots of us around, if you know where to look,’ Nuri says.
‘I can introduce you to my coven, if you want. Humans are oblivious, of course. Always looking out for scary monsters, not someone who’s the same as them.
You’ll have walked past us your whole life.
The larger covens have kept in touch through generations, passing down heirlooms and knowledge that humans thought they’d destroyed – like the fact that potion in the temple wasn’t a cure. ’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Damian wanted me to finish making it. He wanted to become one of us.’
She scowls. ‘I assumed as much. But honestly, we suspect it was never going to be finished. You can’t just become a witch, no matter how much magic you drink.
Ozias tried for months to make it work, pouring more and more magic into it.
The process was slowly killing him. His coven begged him to stop, but he blamed himself for what Clarabelle was doing to our kind.
They were together before she knew what he was, but when she found out she became .
. . overly interested. She’d allow him to channel her emotions, but would demand he use all his magic to assist with whatever whim she had that day.
And when he started to refuse, she got angry. ’
She sounds like Damian. Wanting what she couldn’t have, trying to use someone who loved her instead of simply loving them back.
But not all humans are like that. Astin’s not like that.
And that gives me hope there are more humans out there who will one day welcome us, who will accept what magic we can offer without demanding more.