Page 85 of The Witch They Fear

It is the sound of a body being undone.

It’s brief.

A wet, structural snap that goes deeper than bone. Something cartilaginous letting go all at once. Then a softer noise—almost domestic, the sound a heavy book makes if you drop it on carpet. Then silence. Then something rolls. Slowly. Across the floor.

I do not look.

A boot, scuffed at the toe, three feet from my face.

A hand braced against the floorboards next to my head. Knuckles split. Blood up past the wrist.

"Hex."

His voice cracks across the syllable.

I open my eyes. It is the worst thing I have done all day. The light pierces. The blood in my hair has stuck my cheek to the floor. He is on his knees in front of me—Kage, Kage, dark hair fallen forward across his face, those storm-blue eyes doing something I have never seen them do. He is pale. There is blood on his hands and blood on his sleeves and blood up past his rolled cuffs, and none of it is his.

"What the fuck were you doing."

Not a question. He is breathing through his teeth. His jaw is locked so hard the tendon at his throat stands out. He is shaking, and the shake is not fear—it is rage with nowhere to go now that the thing he wanted to put it through is in pieces on the floor.

"Kage—"

"You walked back here alone. You walked back here alone and you put your fucking hand on him—"

"Kage, how—"

"You took my blood, witch."

It comes out flat and ugly. He is not gentle when he says it, but I still don’t understand.

"You have my blood in you and now I feel you when you're scared. I felt you scared and the floor went out from under me." He drags a forearm across his cheek, smearing somebody else's blood into his hairline. "I was three buildings away. I came as fast as I could, Hex."

"Oh..."

It is the only word my mouth can make.

His hand finally lands. Not gently. He braces his palm against the side of my face—too rough, too much pressure, the way a man steadies something he wants to shake—and I feel the blood on his skin tacky against my temple. His thumb finds the cut above my eyebrow and presses, hard, and the pain whites me out for a second and brings me back sharper. I hiss.

"Stay with me. Don't close your eyes. Are you hearing me?"

"Yeah—"

"Where else did he bite you?"

"Just—just the neck—"

"Just." The word comes out like he wants to spit it. He looks down at the bite. His mouth twists. "Just."

The magic spikes.

I feel it the way you feel a sneeze coming, the whole-body inevitability of something my muscles are about to do whether I authorize it or not. The spiral didn't stop just because the suction did. The pressure curve is still climbing. My power has been screaming for an exit for the last forty seconds and now that one has opened—air, finally—it is going to take it.

Sparks blink at my fingertips. Tiny. White. Wrong.

Kage sees them. His face changes.

"No no no no—Hex."