Were you crying for me?
His brow bone suddenly plummets, draping so low that his eyebrows clock his thick lashes. He takes a step back. “What did I tell you this morning, Daya?”
My lips pinch. Did he think I was about to leap into his arms? The thrill of bloodcasting withers like my delight to have foundhimlurking behind my door. “It hasn’t slipped my mind. Don’t worry.”
“Speak the words back to me.”
“Why?” I snap.
“I need to hear you say them.”
“Why?”
“Just fucking say them!”
“Youmetsomeone,” I snap. “There. Relieved?”
“Yes.” His jaw twitches as though he were about to utter more words, but he doesn’t. Because footfalls ring in my hallway?
Fallon appears beside him, her complexion upsettingly colorless. Before I can ask her if everything’s all right, three members of the Akwale—Malka, Aza, and Tamar—bustle in beside her. Their hands are soaked in blood. Is it Taytah’s? Does my grandmother lay in a puddle?
“Where’s the door?” Tamar’s pink eyes scroll over the bare stone arch.
“Daya banished it,” Cathal replies, his pitch oddly toneless.
Aza’s head rears back, which sends her long, midnight locks frolicking. “Daya?”
Fallon frowns, looking from her father to me. “I don’t understand. How?”
“Spells die with their maker,” I explain, repeating Meriam’s last words.
Is my mother still lingering, or has she fled? Now that I know the truth, I suddenly hope she’s gone, because Priya’s sorceresses wear expressions that smack of vengeance.
Malka gives her head an abrupt shake, which sends her short red strands tumbling around her bare, brown shoulders. “I don’t know what lies Meriam fed you?—”
“Truths. She fed me truths.”
“Are you expecting us to believe that you suddenly have blood magic?” Aza asks.
“I don’tsuddenlyhave blood magic. I’ve always had blood magic. It justsuddenlyreturned. Like I said, spells perish with their maker.”
“ImTaytah bound you?” Fallon gasps.
“Yes.”
“She wouldn’t have done that.” Aza shakes her head. “If anyone bound your magic, it’s your spiteful mother.”
“A mother that, until tonight, Daya had never met.” The tendons in Cathal’s neck draw tight. “So when—do enlighten us—would Meriam have cast such a spell?”
Malka rubs her blood-smeared hand down the silk pants she wears over a matching sky-blue top. “She must’ve bound her magic before sending Zendaya into the belly of the serpent.”
Could this be true? Could Meriam have pretended it was her mother’s fault in order to ingratiate herself with me?
Fallon scrutinizes my pumping chest. “Did Meriam draw whorls of blood on the skin over your heart, Mádhi?”
“No.”
Relief smooths Fallon’s rumpled brow. “Then Meriam was speaking the truth. Priya bound my mother’s Shabbin side.” She nervously toys with the little loop speared through the shell of her ear. “I can’t believe she did that.”
