Soon after, I found myself in the closet with the door shut, and animated dolls with synthetic souls were my only company as I struggled to coax forth my powers.
I wasn’t sure about how to trigger them. I’d only activated my powers three times, once whenI killed Mother, twice when I found Dreadful tossing Nebula, and thrice when I went near the dark magic circle. Two of those times, I’d been angry. The other was automatic. None of them had I been in control.
I sucked in a steady breath and focused on the magic humming deep within my soul as I stared at one of the lifeless dolls. I tried channeling anger at Mother and for everything she had done to me, but I couldn’t stew in it. There wasn’t much anger simmering in my blood from the past. It was like when my powers awakened, all of my anger and resentment for her had disappeared along with her soul.
There was sadness for what I could’ve had if my father had known about me, and there was curiosity. A desire to know why she did everything she did. But anger? Anger had raged through me like a storm until there was nothing left.
Still, I tried, but nothing was happening.
My concentration was shattered by the sudden plunge of darkness. My night vision kicked in, and my heart lurched in my chest as I remembered that cold, dark Fates-forsaken cellar. It was so dark all of the time. A lot like this. It reminded me of those sharp, painful tendrils of shadow magic that broke my flesh over and over again.
Shadows danced across the walls like thosemerciless scorching tendrils from my nightmares, reaching out to impale me. I couldfeelthe echoes of the past rise within me, threatening to pull me back into the abyss of fear and despair I had known so well.
But I didn’t want to be afraid. I didn’t want to freeze, not again. I wanted to fight this feeling.
Dex and Grimshaw emerged from the shadows with matching smirks on their lips.
“Did we scare you, princess?” Grimshaw purred, completely drunk on the fear pouring out of me. “Fuck, yes, we did.”
My lips tingled with fear, and it was like a cold sludge had taken root where my blood had been as I stood there, staring at the two of them.
They’d…turned out the light?
“Sorry, trouble.” Dex tilted his head, his white blond hair, that looked like a gray blob in the darkness, moved with the motion. “But you can’t call Hemlock a drunk bastard and think that’s okay.”
“Yeah, I mean, he totally fucking is, but that doesn’t mean some pretty little princess can tell him that.” Grimshaw drew a hit from his pipe and jumped in front of me, blowing his rainbow smoke in my face. The pretty colored magic smelled like him, likeblood.“Nobles and their fucking audacity.”
Their words were like a basilisk’s venom, sharp and searing.
He had called me a slut first, I wanted to scream at them. But my voice was frozen in my throat as panic rose inside.
They crowded me in that small closet, and I felt like I was chained again with threats all around me. I didn’t have to look to know my ring was black.
“Fates fucking shit.” Shock enveloped Dex’s face as he stumbled backward and tripped over an animated doll that had somehow found its way onto the floor. His ass met the floor with a crack.
“What’re you so afraid of—” Grimshaw’s words hung in the air mockingly and unfinished as his green eyes widened with fear of his own. “Oh, fuck.”
A torrent of darkness spilled from my mouth, billowing forth like a tsunami unleashed. The black mist twisted and writhed in the air, coalescing into a swirling vortex of shadows that seemed to pulse with a life of its own.
It was raw and uncontrolled, a magical manifestation of the pain that raged inside of my soul.
My body convulsed, caught in a struggle to contain my power so it didn’t eat their souls.
“Her eyes are black,” Dex croaked.
“No horns,” Grimshaw squeaked.
But even as the darkness inched toward their mouths, intent on dipping inside and consuming their souls, it paused.
Their eyes were wide with terror, staring a sure death in the face, but with every fiber of my strength, I fought to control it. Something within me registered that desire for control, and languidly, the darkness receded, sucking back past my lips and into my body where it had come from.
I staggered backward and sagged against the shelves, my body trembling with magical exhaustion, and then, everything went black.
24
SKEL
My magic reserves were overfilled to the point that I thought I was about to fucking combust. Fear clogged this damn closet, and my own fear of dying mixed with Gravesend’s residual fear lingering. Dex’s fear was very faint but also mixed in there since my fear magic spilled from me in buckets.
