Page 101 of The Witch They Fear

"Mm."

We sit. We're quiet. The smoke smells like burnt oak and rain coming. He's half a hand-span from me and I am hyperaware of him in a way that's not new and isn't getting better.

"Hex."

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask you something."

"Okay."

"You don't have to answer."

"Okay."

A long pause.

"How did it feel?"

I open my eyes.

He's looking at the ground. His forearm is on his knee, his other hand is loose, his face careful. The same careful he's been using all night.

"How did what feel?"

"When it came out of you. The first time–” He clears his throat. “The hotel."

I go still.

"Don't," I say, and it's quieter than I want it to be.

"I'm asking the same way you asked me, Hex."

"You're asking me about killing—"

"I'm asking you what your magic feels like when it's yours." He turns his head to look at me. "I'm asking what it is to be the thing the academy is afraid of. I'm the only person in this building who is going to ask you that without writing it down somewhere. So if you want to never tell me, never tell me. But don't tell me I'm not allowed to ask. You asked who I am. I'm asking who you are."

The fire pops in the distance.

I look at my left hand on my knee. The hand that put light through Thierry Vasreaux's shoulder. The hand that did, by my own strong suspicion, the same thing twelve years ago to a hotel hallway. I have never described any of it to anyone.

I can’t believe I’m about to.

"It feels like coming up for air," I say.

He's silent.

"You know when you've been holding your breath for a long time and you didn't realize you were holding it, and then you exhale and your whole body unclenches?" I'm not looking at him. I'm looking at my hand. "It's that. When the magic goes out of me cleanly. When I'm not fighting it. It's the most whole I'm ever going to feel. It's the only time in my life I've ever felt like I was the right size for the body I'm inside."

A pause.

"And the consequences," he says.

I close my eyes.

"And the consequences."

I have to stop talking for a second. The bandage on my neck is very loud against my skin.