His quiet care has calmed the thrumming of my mind, helping me to see everything so much more clearly, while he’s won over my body so thoroughly.
But then, he always does.
When the cloth comes up to wipe at my forehead and cheeks, I blink up at him. Our eyes lock, and he brushes a thumb along my chin. He drops the cloth into the bowl and then, still watching me, he reaches into his pocket and holds out his hand.
There, sitting in his palm, is a frayed piece of my ribbon. The same one Midas had tied around my wrist.
My eyes fill as I reach out and tentatively take it. The moment I feel the satiny fabric, a sob passes my lips, tears spilling over my cheeks.
A twinge pulses at a single spot beside my spine, as if my body knows where this ribbon was. As if it wants it back.
For a long time, I just sit here. Slightly bowed over, staring at the dulled gold of the unmoving ribbon, thumbing over the tattered end still stained with blood.
Then, I raise my head, look at Slade where he’s leaning against the wall.
“I don’t want to be weak anymore.”
My confession stands on a tension line between where I am and where I want to go. It’s a precarious balance, but I curl my toes and stand up straight, hearing Slade’s words whisper back to me.
Don’t fall.
Fly.
We’ve been transported back into that moment in the library again. Except now, parts of me are missing. Taken away. The wounds on my back twinge, but it only serves to make me feel more resolute. I twist the ribbon in my hand.
“I don’t want to be weak ever again.”
He absorbs my determined declaration with quiet study. I see his dusky green eyes flicker just beside my face, as if he’s looking at my aura. His is stowed away, the black vapors that hug his form hidden right alongside his spikes and scales.
“I want to master my own strength—physicallyandmagically,” I tell him, my words sounding out of breath with the exertion of what lies ahead. And even though it no longer feels, no longer moves or lives, the ribbon still offers me its fortitude.
I wait, my breathing erratic, the feel of my heartbeat thumping hard against my bones. I’m not exactly sure what I’m waiting for him to say. Maybe that I don’t have to worry. That I have him and the others in my corner now.
But none of that changes my determination.
I need to be strong formyself. Because I will never forget that feeling of being held against a wall while I was mutilated. I will never forget that feeling of utter helplessness.
Perhaps things are born from trauma. An anger. A clarity.
A beast.
It scares me. Terrifies the hell out of me—of what I did that night. Because I don’t know my own power. But that’s been the problem all along, hasn’t it?
Maybe none of us truly know our own strength. Not until the world has hacked away at us. But the point is, we aren’t strongbecauseof our trauma. We were always strong to begin with. We just needed to figure it out for ourselves.
Which is why I meet Slade’s eye, and I don’t waver when I say, “I want to be so strong that I never have to fear anyone else in this world. That if I need to, I can make them all fearme. And I want you to teach me.”
Silence reigns like a rigid monarch.
For a moment, I wonder if I’ve crossed a line. If I’ve shocked him. Worry makes me want to gnaw on my bottom lip.
But then, Sladegrins.
I can see it right there on his face—the pride. Theexcitement. It’s wholly fae too, something almost animalistic about it. As if his own vengeful beast is ready to rise up and roar alongside mine. It’s contagious, and maybe a little unhinged, and I feel my own lips tipping up too.
He comes over, reaches up to grab hold of my chin, and then he leans down until his lips are skimming against mine so that I canfeelhis words when he murmurs. “Oh, Goldfinch. I’d thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 19
