“Let me go, you necrotic asshole!” she shrieks.
“What’s wrong, Darling?” I purr, drinking in how prettily her skin flushes beneath my death. Pure void against such a multitude of color. “Forgive me if the time apart has tainted my memory, but as I recall, you used to enjoy being lashed and leashed.”
I run my tongue lasciviously over my upper lip. Willa’s lips peel back in a vicious snarl, tendrils of caramel hair falling in front of eyes. Then she goes entirely still, her sudden compliance setting my teeth on edge far more than her fight.
Willa doesn’t relent, which can only mean that shadow inside her is scheming. I can almost feel it clawing at the inside of her skin, railing against the cage of her ribs in fury. Desperate to feed. To destroy.
Cocking my head, I run my gaze lazily down the length of her. “I’d almost forgotten how pretty you look tied up in my death.”
A boldfaced lie. Every detail of Willa—from the bob of her throat to the way she takes her tea—remains in vivid form in my memory. But the lie serves its purpose, familiar rage sparking over her expression. I want to bathe in the light of its fire, for it is a familiar comfort on the otherwise foreign landscape of her face.
For while she is still undeniably beautiful, there is something different about the edges of her. The greens and golds of her eyes are clouded by shades of gray, like a film has been left to fester over the irises, sapping their usual vibrancy.
As I take her in, I realize it isn’t just her eyes—allof Willa appears dimmer somehow. Like she’s been fed upon and drained, bit by bit.
Exactly as my brother said would happen.
Willa tilts her head, her eyes narrowing viciously at my small frown. “What’s wrong, Corpsey?”
I flinch, unprepared for the way her husky voice slides down my spine like a caress. Star above, I missed it,all of it—even that infernal fucking name.
Willa’s gaze is as sharp as the edge of a sword. “All your incessant talk of thriving in the darkness, and now you can’t stand the sight of mine?”
“That darkness,” I say slowly, watching the shadow rise behind her eyes, “is not yours, Darling.”
At my words, the shadow thrashes against my death’s hold. It doesn’t like to be spoken of—doesn’t like when I allude to its foreign nature. It is a virus eating away at the truest parts of her, and it has wielded Willa’s guilt and shame like weapons. It has sliced through her chest, planted itself behind her heart like it has always been there.
But I know the landscape of Willa’s heart better than I know my own. I know the warm touch of her rage and the softer spaces it protects.
“You don’t know anything about what’smineanymore.” She laughs, a hollow sound that is nothing like the one that’s woven through my dreams. “You’ve been gone for ayear. Things change.”
Her words are bitter and aching and they tug a swell of emotions up into my throat. I want to take Willa in my arms and shake her; I want to confess every terrible thing I’ve done in the past year and every terrible thing done to me; I want to pin her to the ground and crush her body beneath mine, mark that flawless skin with my teeth and my hands in punishment for daring to send me away; I want to bury myself inside her in worship and apology for giving her a reason to do it.
But I only grit my teeth, trapping a cry in my mouth as I’m inundated in waves of agony. There will be a time to address the wreckage that lay between Willa and I, but it isn’t now. Not when I cannot bear my magic for more than a few moments, weakenedas I am by the months without it. Not when that ominous shadow lies in wait for the moment the pain overcomes me, and escapes to destroy us both.
“Things may change,” I tell her, ignoring the exhaustion heavy in my limbs as I pull my ribbons tighter against her skin. “But not that which endures.”
Something softens in Willa’s gaze. It is only a moment, but a moment is all I need to know she is not too far gone. My words conjure a memory, a deep hope we’d once both held onto as if it were the only anchor in the world.
A moment later, the softness disappears, lost to the shadow rearing up like I’ve attacked. It churns behind her eyes like an angry storm. Willa’s anger has always been intimate, butthisanger is righteous, a fury that feeds on the vulnerable. It is not born of preservation, but predation, spawned in the darkest of holes.
Willa lets out a feral shriek of pain, and my heart leaps into my throat as the shadow lashes against the inside of her skin with increasing furor. A pressure that cannot abate with my death wrapped around it, it builds and builds until she screams. The will-o-wisps floating in the empty sockets of the island scatter, and for a moment, it is not the island that appears skeletal, but Willa.
A blink, and the image is gone, but it remains long enough for an icy dread to seize my heart, because I’ve seen someone look like that before.
When I knelt before the Aeternalis’ throne, my knees stuck to the rock by the tackiness of my own blood.
“Niko,” Willa moans, the name enough to undo me entirely. “It hurts.You have to let me go.”
My fingers spasm, and my jaw locks as I fight to keep hold of my magic. The shadow pounds and I hate myself for not being strong enough to stop it—for not being able to shield her fromthe darkness. Black edges my vision, and I know I’m running out of time.
“Never,”I snarl, a lethal vow. Gritting my teeth, I pull my ribbons as tight as I can and shove Willa into the lake.
And then I run.
Marina is waiting for me when I slink up the shore. Her mouth thins in distaste as she takes in the bedraggled state of me, her lips nearly disappearing when my feet slip, and I tumble face-first into the sand.
My body aches and nausea clenches my stomach in an iron vise. Recoating my tongue with saliva, I crawl toward her, sea-salt and regret grating between my teeth.
