Page 119 of Carousel

He sort of slides backwards, until his back is against the tree. A tiny rust-red crab scuttles out from somewhere in the sand under him, like a little heart escaping its ribs.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Did you do something to me?”

My body goes rigid. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure? It started feeling different. I mean, amazing. But, different. Like I was high. Or on fire.”

Like he was on fire?

I wanted to make him feel what I was feeling.

Did I actually manage to do that?

I shake the thought away. It’s impossible.

Sounds like something Drake would be able to do.

Drake. Who had asked me if I had blood magic.

After I’d willed him, in my mind, not to pick up the knife. And he hadn’t.

Hadn’t I even done this to Cosmer before? I’d wanted him to look at me so badly at the morale booster. And he had.

I choke up. “Sisters. Cosmer, I’m so sorry. I think, maybe…” I search the beach, panicked. The clouds are expanding. The palms sway more. The pain in my arms…

Right where the track marks are.

“Ara. What’s going on?”

“Cosmer,” I whisper. “I’m scared.”

I shut my eyes. But when I open them, I notice, above his head, the outline of a ship in the sky.

He follows my line of sight and sees it too. He wraps his arms around me, bringing me towards him and the tree, and we huddle there like that until the ship passes.

He turns to me. “Okay. Please tell me what’s happening. Now.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I need to talk to Meg. Or Drake.”

“Drake?”

A man whose hands react with mine when we touch.

Riss’ voice. I would start thinking very carefully about how you’re going to break that wonderful news to Cosmer.

I don’t want to tell him.

But it needs to be done. We’ve slept together. I don’t want to feel like I’m hiding anything from him.

“There’s some kind of link between Drake and I.”

Cosmer blinks, twice. “A link.”

“And, if I have the same talent he does, somehow…”

Squinting at me, he says, flat as a line, “You can bend people’s will, too.”