“Logan?”
“Keep going.” The words come out rough, his eyes fixed on my bleeding palm. “Don’t stop.”
He’s watching me as if he’s experiencing the pain right along with me. No—not right along with me. It’s like he’s experiencing itmorethan me. A shudder runs through him, and his breathing slows, as if he’s doing everything he can to center himself.
Concern ripples through me. “Are you?—”
“Enough.” His hand wraps around my wrist and pulls it away from the bowl, chunks of stone crumbling from the altar where he was holding it.
Warmth spreads through my palm as the cut seals itself, and I can feel the relief in my body that I’ve stopped fighting its natural inclination to stay alive.
“First trial complete,” Logan says, but he’s tenser than before, still not looking at me. His face is pale, and he wipes a bead of sweat from the side of his forehead, even though it’s not hot in here.
“Hey.” I touch his arm with my clean hand, relieved when he doesn’t pull away. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to?—“
“I’m fine.” He steps back, finally meeting my eyes. “It was just hard seeing you bleed like that. That’s all.”
My stomach flips from the intense way he’s watching me. Because yes, he clearly cares about me. But this was something else entirely. And while I suspect there was more to it than that, I know that’s all he’s going to give me for now. There’s no point in pushing, especially since I have three more trials to complete and am lightheaded from the blood loss.
“I’m okay.” I hold out my hand to give him a better look. “See? All healed.”
“We’re going to have to work on training your body to heal slower,” he muses, examining my hand.
My breaths come faster from his touch, every line he traces burning like fire across my skin. Neither of us speaks for a few seconds, but then he drops my hand, and it’s like none of that happened at all.
“Witches heal fast,” he adds, his gaze moving up to meet mine, “but notthatfast.”
I blink a few times to focus myself. “So, we train so I can stay alive, but we also teach me how to stop my body from trying to keep me alive?”
“Like I said, witches don’t heal that fast.” His voice drops, so serious that I still. “If your rapid healing draws suspicion and word gets to the Council, it won’t be long until they get their hands on you. If they get their hands on you, then you might wish you were dead. So yes, teaching you how to slow your healing is, in fact, part of keeping you alive.”
A shiver rolls through me at the way he talks about the Council, just like it does every time. Because these are the people who are supposed to protect witches. The ones the school teaches us to trust and follow.
Too bad I’m not the sort of witch they want to protect. Assuming I’m a witch at all.
“Thank you, Logan,” I tell him. “For your help. For everything.”
He startles, as if he wasn’t expecting that. “You’re welcome,” he says, his voice like silk as he turns his focus back to the bowls. “Now—one down, three to go.”
JADE
“What’s next?”I ask. “The memory one?”
“Yes.” He straightens, pulling himself back together, but I can still see the strain in his jaw, the aftershocks from whatever that blood trial did to him. “The memory you sacrifice has to be one that’s important to you. Not one you give away for self-preservation, but one you give away as a sacrifice. The harder it is to lose, the better chance you’ll have of passing the trial.”
“Oh.” My frown deepens as I stare at the bowl etched with French inscriptions, its black flames licking the air without heat.
Already, my brain is rifling through the catalog of my past. Which important memory can I afford to lose? Which one won’t leave me hollow?
Making my first piece of jewelry when I was twelve, a lopsided bracelet that Holly wore to school, bragging to everyone about how her little sister made it.
The stolen weekend in the Hamptons with Chase, my ex-boyfriend, when I gave him everything because I thought forever actually meant something.
My sixteenth birthday at the Met when my friends threw me a surprise party—back when I believed their friendships werereal, before they dropped me because I didn’t get into the same colleges they did.
The dinner before Ivy Day, when every Ivy League school sends out their decision letters at the same time. We all assumed I was Yale-bound, no questions asked.
“I know which one.” My voice comes out steadier than expected, and I move to the second bowl, where black flames dance without heat. “The last good memory of my parents.”
