I feel the slight tremor of her touch, but I can’t open my eyes. Not yet.
“Time blurred, the cage got smaller, my hair grew, my markings multiplied. And eventually, I just… gave up.” Iswallow. “I… I tried to die. Refused the scraps of food and water funnelled through pipes, let myself fade, fall into the dark. But every time I slipped under…” My chest tightens. “She hired a necromancer, and they dragged me back. Again. Again. Again… I can’t remember how many times.”
But I remember the pain. The burning. The screaming.
Every single time.
“And after a while, I forgot things. My name… Words…. Who I was… But I kept that pile of ash.” I nod, almost to myself. “I always kept it dry and safe, even when I forgot what it was. Who it was.”
It was all I had left of them.
“How…” Her voice breaks, and the sound forces me to finally look at her. “How did you get out?” she whispers, tears trailing over her lips, down her chin, dropping onto our joined hands.
“Eventually, finally, I heard a voice, a voice with a reallyannoyingaccent.” I try to smile again, for her, for myself, but I can’t quite make it. “And fuck did I want it to be real.Goddesses, I remember how much I wanted it. But then it said words I didn’t understand. Fancy, stupid words.”
I finally manage a smirk, but it’s thin.
“Julien found you,” she breathes the words, the relief so clear.
“And his voice being inside my head, it triggered something. Back then I didn’t realise what but, for the first time, I crossed into the Dark Realm. That’s when I saw him.”
This is a memory that has stayed. His tall dark form, clad in shadows, stepping closer to my tiny cage.
I remember the fear.
“But I hadn’t seen anyone in so long, hadn’t spoken, hadn’t been touched. I’d become…” I look away as I murmur the word, “Feral.”
I breathe in, hold and count to three, try to fight the ache in my chest when I hear Red’s breath catch again.
“When Julien broke my cage, tore it apart with his shadows, the ashes…” I shake my head, hearing my past scream. “All those years, that’s all I had, a pile of dust I called my friends, and they just disappeared into the dark…”
I wet my lips.
“I just… lost it. I launched myself at Julien.” A hoarse laugh rattles out of me. “Well, Itriedto. But I was skin and bones. I didn’t stand a chance against him. I couldn’t even walk properly, didn’t know how to use my powers.”
My gaze drops to the counter, focussing on the untouched coffees.
“His shadows restrained me, and kept saying things, over and over, words I didn’t understand, until I realised it wasn’t a sentence.” I fight against the lump in my throat, the slicing twist in my stomach. “It wasn’t a sentence, it was a word. Just one, whispered in different languages.Ami. Amicus. Dusa.”
“What does it mean?” she whispers.
I open my mouth to say it, but the word sticks in my throat. It feels too small for what it meant in that moment, for how many times he said it, how many times he’s said it since.
For what it saved.
I look at her. “Friend.”
Jasmine inhales sharply, then she drops her gaze—and I swear the entire room loses heat.
I place two fingers under her chin, gently guiding her face back up.
The sight guts me.
Her cheeks are wet with fresh tears, a small sob cracking free as her watery eyes flicker between black and red like she’s splintering in two. She’s losing her grounding, darkness slithering in as the shadows reach out and pull her—
She launches onto me, so suddenly I nearly fall back off the stool. Her arms lock around my neck, legs dangling beside mine as she places all her weight, all of her calming heat, into me.
Her fingers slip into my hair, clinging but gentle, anchoring me to her in every way she can. Touching me everywhere she can.
