You, my pet, Percy Flores, have not harmed or killed anyone,” I replied. I feared that my pet’s innate caring nature would only cause her pain.
“Without me, Evie never does anything you classify as worthy of death. Valen doesn’t try to use me against you. Remy never escapes, so his wife and the driver never die. Clara doesn’t betray you. The Academy guard never witnesses what he thinks is inter-coven magic. It’s me. I’m responsible for it all. And now with this new ability—this death—that I can’t even control. How many more people are going to die because of me?” she asked angrily.
I pulled her in tighter to me.
“None of those deaths are on your conscience,” I tried to reassure.
“But they are. I’m the common thread, Selene,” she told me, defeated. “I think I’m a bad person.” She spoke so quietly if not for my enhanced hearing, I would have missed in.
I pulled her even tighter against my chest, almost crushingly tight.
“My pet, you are not to blame,” I hushed her. “You are so sweet. You even cry for those that hurt you, that would havetaken your life without hesitation. You are not responsible, even if you feel so. You are good, and you are mine,” I reassured her, even if Percy were to ever be the cause of any harm or crime, as my property, the weight of the responsibility would fall upon me.
I hated hearing Percy speak lowly of herself. It hurt me in a foreign way. Before Percy, I did not truly care how others felt, and I was not concerned at all with how others viewed themselves. Such worries had never entered my thoughts. Yet now, the knowledge that my pet thought poorly of herself upset me.
Percy did not speak further; she fell back asleep against my chest, and I continued to murmur affirmations that she was good and kind, in the hopes that they invaded her mind and produced sweet dreams.
However, I could not sleep myself. I stayed up, contemplating the various dangers that Percy’s novel ability could bring about. The Royal Conference would be a delicate political affair, and the growing disquiet of the northern Houses was not a problem that could be left alone.
For the first time in my life, I truly feared for the future and questioned my ability to hold and protect what was mine.
4. Basil, Basil, Everywhere.
Persephone Flores
Selene had classes. I did not. I didn’t know how bored I’d be without anything to occupy me.
I could have studied, but it seemed pointless to do so when I didn’t know if my suspension would be over before my exams started. I only had one exam this term, covering human, shifter, and vampire anatomy for myIntroduction to Anatomy for Healerscourse.
In truth, I was too nervous to think about anything other than proving that Ana and I had not practised inter-coven magic, which should have been easy to do. If I could only make my magic work in the opposite way, like how it had the day before.
I zipped my coat all the way up, a little too roughly, taking my frustration with myself and my inability to control my new magic out on my innocent coat zip before rubbing my cold hands together to heat them up and once again attempted to kill my basil plant.
All I had achieved so far was to produce quite possibly the biggest, greenest, healthiest basil plant ever known.
I groaned loudly in frustration and remembered Heidi’s growling comment. Was I becoming more like Selene, picking up her mannerisms, maybe?
“This is pointless. Why won’t you die, Mr Basil?” I asked the plant.
It couldn’t reply, of course, but that had never stopped me from speaking to my plants. They might not reply, but I thought in some way they could understand.
“I don’t want to kill you, but I need to. I’ll bring you back straight away,” I promised, reaching out to touch a large green leaf.
The air was filled with the pleasant smell of the plant, and it sprouted new branches.
“No,” I cried and kicked the wooden flower box.
I was tired; I hadn’t slept well the night before, and the cold upset me further.
I was made for the warmth of spring and the heat of summer, not the wet, cold of autumn and winter.
And I was meant to bring life to my garden, not attempt to take it, but here I was, trying to destroy my now-prized basil plant.
My magic had never been something that I really thought about, not in-depth. It just sort of happened the way I willed it to. So why couldn’t I will it to decay instead of grow?
I imagined Mr Basil wilting, losing colour, growing brown, dying, and I tried again. More new branches grew—so abundant and numerous that they trailed over the edge of the wooden box and across the rooftop, trying to tangle my feet.
If I kept it up, the whole building would soon be draped in a curtain of basil, and the school would smell of it for weeks.
