Ember approaches my bed as I hang back by the door. I don’t know how she doesn’t notice my hand’s limp at my side. My knuckles are split. My busted pinky finger hangs at an odd angle.All of my left hand is swollen and red like I went through with the hit.
She gently rests her hand on the light-oak bed frame, her fingers trailing a straight line for as long as she can reach. She rubs the smooth, polished wood, memorizing the feel of it. Then she glances down and inspects the bed’s cylindrical, tapered legs. Her eyes linger there as she visually measures the spacing between them.
“Can I sit on your bed?” she asks when she’s done.
“Sure.”Sit, lay, sleep on it.
Her hands pat around to gauge the mattress’s firmness, then she runs the fringe of my soft gray throw through her fingers. I have to turn my back to her. I’m supposed to be in a bad mood, but what she’s doing — how obvious she’s doing it — makes it hard not to smile at her.
“I’m just gonna lay down a second,” she says, and her head hits my pillow.
After I give her another minute to memorize what my bed feels like, I say, “I think you should be a Dark Witch.”
A rubber band snap stings me between my ribs, but the sensation’s gone in the time it takes for her hands to stop moving over my quilt. I press my shoulder to the door for support, dropping my head back. Even if she heard the lie, I know she believes it. Maybe not that I want her to be aDark Witch, but she would believe I’m pushing her away. She’s going to think it’s her — that I don’t want her in Creatus. Actually, I know it’s what she thinks.
All the ease she walked in here with just evaporated. Shewaslooking at me. Now I swear I see her eyes blur.
“I’m gonna go,” she says, quietly getting up.
I feel sick. There’s a knot tightening in my stomach, a punishment for not telling her the truth. I don’t want her to be a Dark Witch. I want her in Creatus. I want to be friends withoutworrying about killing each other. But I can’t get the words out.
“Um. Leland?” Ember asks. She can’t get by to leave.
She’s in leggings — thosefuckingleggings — and a Creatus shirt. Her long hair is loosely pulled back. She got here so quickly after my message, I’m guessing she came straight from the gym.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly, and shifts her hefting satchel uncomfortably on her shoulder because, somehow, she’s made this her fault. “I know it’s the right thing to do. The Council would allow me to go to Selection, and it would set you free. But then I might live the rest of my life doing things I regret. Tracking people down. Siphoning. I can’t take magic away from people. Or investigate them. And Jaxan? You want me in his jurisdiction?”
I shake my head. She’s so confused. I want to take it all back.
“Then why?” she asks, her sad and tired eyes filling in the answer even though I’ve said nothing.
I lift my hand, my instinct to grab her waist. But I don’t. I can’t.
“I just think it would be better,” I say.
She sees it then.
“What happened to your hand?” she asks.
“Fight.” I feel as dense as I sound. “I fought Farrah Prolix today.”
“Why?”
My stomach drops, but I don’t explain. What would I say? This is who I am? How I’ll always be. How I was raised?
“If you did it for me,” Ember says, “for last night — I’m fine, Leland. I Healed. I don’t need to be defended.”
“Farrah hurt you,” I remind her.
“So youhither?” She stares at my hand like she doesn’t believe it.
I lift my brows.Look at me. Of course I did.“I was violent with her, yes.”
“But did youhither?” she asks, her voice reaching. “Was it self-defense?”
“Ember.” I lick my lips. “I got angry. I hurt Farrah Prolix. Doesn’t matter why I did it.”
“Heal your hand,” she says.
