“I need to stay with Hesper!” I called out, but her grip remained tight.
“Safer in here,” she yelled back, ducking into a side street. She bluntly shouldered open a door, the wood splintering onto the stones below. Gruffly, she pulled me into the abandoned cottage, and I coughed as dust and cobwebs flew into my mouth.
My eyes barely adjusted to the dank room before Mabel moved the broken door into place, casting us both into darkness. Only a sliver of light made it through the broken window in the wall.
“Mabel, I have to get back to town and help. Hesper needs me. Dwindle needs me.”
All was silent. The world outside even seemed to mute.
The air felt too thick in here, the shadows too dense.
“Mabel?”
A match lit, and Mabel’s face appeared close to mine. I yelped, grabbing my chest.
“You scared me,” I said quickly. “Look, we have to go. Thankyou for bringing me to safety, but there are people outside and—”
Mabel put a single finger up to her mouth, shushing me. Her grin went too wide, and my heart began to shrink in on itself.
“You’ve released the bind on your magic.”
“What?” I stumbled back, and Mabel’s arm reached out to right me, her grip harsh, her skin freezing cold to the touch.
“Hmm.” Mabel sniffed the air.
“You’re scaring me,” I said, trying to reach for anything behind me I could use to ward her off. What was going on? Mabel had always been so kind, but everything about this was wrong.
“Do you know why Thanadyn did what he did?” Mabel said slowly.
“I—I—”
“I asked, do you know why he did what he did?” Mabel’s voice lost any hint of the sweetness it usually held; only an echo of her remained. “Answer me!” she commanded, and the darkness seemed to coalesce.
“For power.” I tripped over my words. Nothing made sense. The world outside was falling apart, and here was Mabel—the kind ogre who had comforted me when I first arrived, gave me clothes, ran the library. Yet her presence made my skin crawl. Had the shadows already gotten to her? Would they warp all of Dwindle just as the stories said they already had?
“Power, my dear, is never the full story,” Mabel’s voice dripped with calmness, a warped sense of charm. Every syllable felt like it wanted to creep under my skin and rot there.“Thanadyn was much like you. Brimming with magic, hopeful, but his heart magic showed itself in healing. Not physical wounds, but the ones that run deeper. Soul wounds. For a peaceful kingdom needed folk at peace. He spent his days healing sadness, grief, loss. But it was not enough…” Mabel’s voice seethed, echoing around the room.
Never enough, that old voice in my mind agreed.
“The fae grew hungry, and no matter how much magic Thanadyn expended, he could never root out jealousy, discontent, greed. His magic was spent fruitlessly for long ages. Finally, after too many days spent tending to the soul wounds of folk who had naught but ill will in their hearts, Thanadyn’s heart magic turned inward. Instead of healing, hestoked. Turning a soul wound into a living, festering thing. And it feltgood.
“He had been alive for too long. He’d wasted too much of his magic. He saw beings for what they were: hopeless. Why not spark them into their true natures then? On that day, withering magic was born. On that day, Thanadyn came into his true self.”
My heart shrunk in on itself, cowering in the deepest corners of my soul.
“You can always ch-choose light, Ma-Mabel,” I sputtered out the words, fear shredding its way through my body.
“Light can turn into darkness, just like that.” Mabel snapped her fingers; the match went out. Heavy darkness shrouded me, muffling my senses. “Withering magic crept its way into Starfall bit by bit, being by being, plant by plant, for the magic had an endless fuel. Fear. Hope and happiness? They are momentary. Fear? That will always return.”
The flip side of a what if, my heart said sadly.
It isn’t true, I pleaded.Don’t listen.
“It would have been easy, you know.” The voice was right next to me. My heart went ice cold. “With endless amounts of fear, withering magic could have taken over the whole world. But then there was Eldrene.” The voice went sharp, disjointed. “She sacrificed her magic to the land, binding me and my magic within heart magic’s hold. But—”
The voice became singsong. “Hope cannot hold on forever. Her power is waning, and Thanadyn grows stronger.”
“How do you know any of this?” My voice shook, my heart quavered.
