He flips around and winds it around his fist until we’re inches apart. “You’re in chains and at my mercy. What do you want me to call you?”
My heart beats at triple speed with his closeness. I lift a single finger, idling a tap away in indecision, then force the contact he refuses to make. I twist my wrist and clamp my hand over his fist.
His body goes rigid. His eyes strain. A gargled grunt makes it past his clenched jaw. He tears his hands away, gasping, and falls on his ass.
“Eli!” My anger slips into concern.
“Look at you using my name,” he says through punctured breaths.
“What just happened?”
He collects himself, settling into a more dignified position for a man who leaks control from his pores, unbothered by the glass still littering the carpet and no black blood in sight. “That, little tormenter, was your mother’s magic.”
“What?”
“Her gift of pain,” he explains, as if I could forget about it.
“I have it now? You’re not even surprised.” My shaking hands rattle the cuffs. “You knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
His shrug infuriates me as much as his words. “Your temper is bad enough without you knowing what your hands are capable of.”
Not a word solidifies on my tongue. I fall to my knees. The glass doesn’t even phase me this time. Air finds its way in and out of my lungs, and blood chugs through my veins, the only parts of me that remember how to function. I fold myself up small and tuck my hands between my knees. But the vision still hits.
The ivy I tore from the walls glows and surrounds me, white magic shooting from thorns. But the light darkens before reaching my chest. Black spears pierce my heart. Dozens of them. And in my final moment, my last stuttering breath, death tricks me. Darkness slithers into my veins, forcing me to live, to go on breathing, swallowing shadows.
The vision fades, leaving my senses prickling. I sit in silence, Eli breathing heavily two feet away, until I can’t feel the dust in the air settling on my skin anymore, or the whine of regrowing ivy, the sensations more intense than ever before.
“I need a bath,” I say, my voice small and distant. I’m still a muddy, bloody mess from the last few days. I can’t wash away the violent magic I took from my mother, but maybe I can lift the stain she left on my soul.
Chapter 6
EVER
We're out the door fourteen minutes later, three packs stuffed with bars, weapons, ammo, canteens and clothes. My hair and body are finally clean. Mostly. I wear Eli’s familiar black T-shirt and baggy pants again after he dumped a couple of buckets of water over my head in a rush to get moving. Then we left my mother under Coen and Sola’s watch. Kelter had a point that it would raise suspicion if they went along. As the only two out of us that already matured and linked, they would tower above everyone else in Caldera, too tall to fit in.
Hours later, gray clouds make up the midday sky and spill a heavy rain over us. A hesitant wind tosses branches about. Thick trunks line the invisible path we walk, shadowing the woods with their heights.
“I’m sick of all this rain,” Sypher complains from Eli’s other side.
Kaleida passes her hands over her soaked white shirt and down to the thighs of her gray pants. “It’s only water.”
Sypher tugs on the cobalt blue fabric between his legs. “My jumpsuit is chafing.” He still wears the Service Sphere jumpsuit, noticeably tight around his middle, even though he’s no longer a guard after becoming a traitor for helping Eli, like the rest of them. His steps are rapid to keep pace with Eli’s long strides, and he juggles a tiny brown fur ball from one hand to the other, a rodent-like creature with black teeth and a green tail. It was on his shoulder for hours without issue, but it’s rattled now, as if it senses the approaching border. “What’s it like in Caldera?”
“Would you at least search for threats while you pretend we don’t have an entire realm out to kill us?” Eli asks.
“Fast,” I say, ignoring Eli and remembering the speeding cars and impatient people in Caldera, back when life revolved around a clock and expectations. “And mostly pointless. It’s hundreds of miles of pure city surrounded by forests and oceans. Nobody cares about anyone or anything. And there’s way too many people. Millions.”
“Well, you’ve convinced me,” Kaleida jokes, almost landing a hand on my shoulder before Eli’s glare scares her off. “Sonnet only has ten thousand or so Vaile, I’d guess. It’s mostly land and what’s left of villages with no one in them. Nobody even goes to the realms up north anymore.”
“That’s too many as it is,” Eli grumbles.
“You can’t bring the scarver with you. It’s magical,” Milo says to Sypher, whipping wet locks from his forehead.
Sypher hugs the creature close to his chest. “If we can cross the border, so can Wendell.”
Milo tousels his short hair. “Don’t be surprised if your old blitzer swoops down and eats Wendell for lunch.”
Sypher’s beady brown eyes expand. “She wouldn’t do that.”
