Page 55 of Moth to a Flame

Talk to him. As if talking had ever helped me. I’d spoken out and been permanently silenced. Every word since, twisted. Every kindness soured in the air between my lips and someone’s ears. After all these years, I had finally learned my lesson. The truth only caused pain. Pain I could manage, but I wouldn’t let it hurt him.

The cruelest part was that he was the only one the curse couldn’t touch. He heard me, the person I’d been before. And I’d been pretending that could last, digging my heart’s own grave.

Tonight, I would cut that out of both of us.

The full moon would crest the treeline in a few hours. All my ingredients were drying in the kitchen, he would learn the chant, and the circle was chalked on the greenhouse floor. Everything was ready except me.

I made myself step back, out of his touch, before the bond could betray how much I didn’t want to.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, and for the first time since that first night, he flinched away from me. “The moon rises at nine. We should finish the preparations.”

My night-bloomers were all awake—the datura turned wide and white toward the glass roof, the evening primrose spilling perfume into the humid dark. Through the panes Hawk had set with his own hands, the full moon shone behind a veil of clouds, dragging its light across the flagstones inch by inch toward the gypsum circle at the center.

We knelt facing each other inside it, the way the spell demanded. Between us, the last of the horehound smoldered in a copper dish, its bitter smoke curling upward. The sword, waiting to be drawn.

One by one, I lit the candles at the circle’s five points, and it felt like a ticking clock. The dark pressed in around us, its icy fingers insatiable.

“Ready, boss?” Hawk’s voice was steady. The bond wasn’t. It quivered like a moth in a spider’s web that knew its time was limited.

I took his hands. His palms were warm, and his fingers curled around mine like they were memorizing their shape—one last time. I didn’t let myself think about that.

I began the chant.

The vines of Hawk’s bond came up first, rising from the ring of gypsum beneath his knees. They were pale, almost translucent, threaded through with the faint silver of the Moon Queen’s magic. They climbed him slowly, winding around his ankles and up his thighs, curling twice around his ribs before pausing at his chest. Their light beat in sync with his heart, and they grew down his arms to our joined hands, reaching for me. Their leaves turned to me like I was the sun. I wanted to be that for him, but I couldn’t. Not until I’d broken my curse—which I had no fucking clue how to do now—and could give him a real life. It was time to let go.

I took a deep breath and whispered the next part of the spell, and the ghostly vines rose like spirits out of the floor around me.

My vines were different. First came vines that mirrored his, pale and luminous as they threaded up my body. But behind them, from somewhere deeper than the cold flagstones, a second vine reared its ugly head. This one was dark, gnarled at the joints, thick as my wrist, and old. Older than my brother’s voice speaking Latin in the drawing room. It had grown from roots nested in every whisper of She’s too aggressive and You should try to be more agreeable. Smile more, sweetheart, then people might like you. Its thorns were long and cruel, and where it wrapped around my chest, it squeezed the breath out of me. Where it wrapped around my throat, it cut deep until blood ran down my skin.

Hawk’s eyes went wide, his grip tightening around my hands. “Lucia, stop!”

“No…no, we’re so close. I’m all right.” I kept chanting, and the thorns of my curse cut through the tender, pale vines. They snapped, and with each one that broke, thorns cut into my throat until my voice came out raw. But I couldn’t stop now. Hawk was almost free.

I’d suspected this might happen ever since I’d finished the translation. Sever each with the tongue laid bare. But my tongue had been twisted for years. My curse had just been waiting to kill this soft magic within me. I could practically feel its glee as it cut those ties. I’d never needed the ritual; the sword had been within me all along.

It reached for Hawk, its invasive nature grasping for anything that was good. It had been designed to keep me alone.

The curse could have me, but I would never let it have him.

I channeled all the magic I had into rage and poison. All my plants came alive, their toxic sap and pollen twisting around the fresh, green tips of the curse. They couldn’t destroy it, but they could stop its spread. It screamed as it coiled back toward me—and away from him. The vine doubled around my throat, squeezing until I choked.

Hawk thrashed against the soft vines that held him, squeaking so much I could barely understand him.

“Lucia, stop! I don’t care about the bond! It’s too dangerous!”

He was so good. He’d always been far too good for me. I forced the words out. “Finish the spell, Hawk.”

“No!” He beat his wings until the greenhouse was a whirlwind and the candles winked out one by one, tumbling out of the circle. His vines grew brighter—stronger. They lashed back toward me, undoing the ritual’s work.

“Hawk, no—” I forced out.

“I’ll stay, Lucia. I want to stay! Don’t do this.”

“You can’t. I can’t trap you.” The silver vines coiled tighter, and I was failing again. The ritual was failing, and it was all my fault.

You’ve always been too much, wanted too much. Now he is going to pay the price.

I tried to choke out the song, but the vines were too tight.