My eyes flew open at that. Those words, they were familiar but distant, like trying to recall a book from long ago, when you could only see the letters on the page but not the words. Then buttercups flashed across my mind, and I knew. The seer who’d come to my mother before my birth. Those were the words that ruined my life.
And Thanadyn knew them.
Puzzle pieces began slotting into place without me even needing to try.
“You? That was you.” My voice came out like a weak croak, and I almost wanted him to say no. I knew he was evil, but I did not know he had been a part of my story all along.
Chills ran up my spine, the only warmth coming from the blood leaking out of my head.
“Yes, indeed.”
I began shaking.
Where are you?I asked my magic. I searched through me as if looking for a lost seed packet. Under the books? No. Inside the cupboard? No.Where are you?I pleaded again.
Nothing.
“I simply had to follow that magical thread to a hovel on the side of a desolate road in a putrid town. When I saw the haggard woman and her swollen belly, I knew my job would be easy. Just like it was so simple to infiltrate Mabel’s sad heart. No one there to read her books and all alone in this world. So when I felt your magic take hold, I knew I had to act quickly—lest the magic begin seeping into the soil and uprooting my hard work. Once hope springs up, it’s tedious to burn away.”
Fennings Forest. Patti’s family. Hesper’s life. My own childhood.
All because of Thanadyn.
Every part of my body trembled now. My entire life had led up to this moment. This death. This withering of myself. And poor Mabel, I had failed her. I should have checked on her when I had the chance, maybe I could have stopped this.
I tried once more to reach for my magic, to reach foranything inside of me. But all I could feel was an aching nothing, a carved-out trunk of my heart.
“I didn’t even have to become a body—just a whisper in your mother’s ear. A few words and…”
A sound of snapping fingers resonated through the room.
“Your life was set to be ruined from the day you were born, becausethat, my dear Clara, is the only way to eliminate heart magic. A slow chipping away: death after death, disappointment after disappointment, neglect, persistent indifference. They all add up, you know. It even worked on the earth itself, the heart magic sequestering itself away in pockets impossible to find. One being a place you know well.”
Moss.
Moss’s magic was heart magic all along.
Home, my heart sang weakly.
“And so, I’ve spent these long years sucking heart magic from the land like honey from a hive. I tracked you the whole time, sensing your magic trying to take root before wilting away each day. But then, you disappeared.”
The shadows around me tightened their grip, my wrists gave a soft pop, and I soundlessly screamed into the nothing.
“I couldn’t find you for fifteen years. For a time, I thought you dead. But then the earth rumbled its song, and I found you this year. In Moss. Eldrene’s haunts. A place I could not access nor feel because of the collective power of her Train. Do you know how I managed to find you, Clara? It’s my favorite part of the story.” Thanadyn sounded almost gleeful. As gleeful as the voice of the dead could be. It sent my body into full terror, blinding me to any hope that there would be an after this moment. There would be now, then nothing.
“You grew flowers one day, yes? A whole field of those silly yellow blooms.”
The day Rosie and I laughed all the way to her house. The day of the Goddess Celebration. The day my magic erupted without even trying.
“Not even Eldrene’s power could squelch the song of heart magic, newly sung through the land. My hounds tracked you easily after that. And you just kept making it simpler. Every time your magic took root outside of Eldrene’s hold, a bright flare sang out to me. Fields of lupines in Moss, a bloom in Lore Isles, your garden in Dwindle. They were like breadcrumbs leading right to you. You see, the darkness always comes, Clara. You thought you found happiness. You thought you completed this quest, grew a garden, secured a life worth loving. But look where you are now.” He tutted. “It wasn’t enough.”
Never enough, my heart whimpered.
Thanadyn was right. I had found a life worth loving, and while it may have been brief, it was worth everything.
Always enough, I said firmly, drumming up the deepest dregs of light I had left.
“Goodbye, Clara Thorne.”
