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I looked at his bandaged hand resting on the table, then found his gaze. “But she said you would know without a doubt? Does that really make her prediction unmistakable?”
“No. But something else does.”
He pulled up his shirt, and for a moment, that made me forget everything else. Then I saw it, low on the left side of his ribs, near where his torso met his hip: a tattoo of a fox among vines, head turned over its shoulder, looking back at something it had decided not to fear. Its tail curled along the curve of his bottom rib like it had been laid there to fit. Half-hidden in the vines was a nautical compass.
“The woman who told me this…her maiden name was Foxgrave.”
Chapter Eleven
The room shrank a little around me.
“You’re telling me all this is somehow…fated?”
“Fated? I try not to think about fate. I just told you what someone I trust told me.”
I watched his eyes flick to the black coastline when he said it. “You told me not to sign up for the next retreat. Why?”
“The ceremony bound you to something that will feed on you until there’s nothing left if you let it.”
I sat up straight. “Excuse me?”
“The marketing is always ‘deepen the work you started.’ It sounds like harmless new-age spirituality because they have great branding. But there’s nothing harmless about it. They take from you, and every time it gets worse. Until there’s nothing left.”
“Take what?”
“Life force. Energy. Years. Whatever the right word is for the thing that makes you…you.”
He paused, glancing at the sinking sun turning the world gold outside.
“Damian, this sounds…” I shook my head.
“I can’t explain everything now, and I doubt you would believe me if I tried. I wouldn’t blame you for that. But you’re going to see it. Watch what shows up in your email. Your DMs. They’ll start reminding you, constantly, that you haven’t finished your journey. Watch the group chat you have with your friends. Things will fall into place faster than you want them to.”
My hand was still wrapped around the mug of untouched tea. My heart didn’t feel like mine anymore. It was too fast and small, like some frightened animal trapped behind my ribs.
“How do you steal somebody’s life force?” I asked. “Because even saying that out loud makes me feel insane.”
“I know.”
“That thing at the fire?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
I thought of the pressure behind me. The sensation of something breathing. My hands went cold. “Oh god.”
“It feeds through the bond the ceremony creates,” Damian said. “Not all at once. That would be too obvious.”
“You’re telling me that thing fed on me?”
“Yes, but you got lucky. They never take much the first time. But if you go back, it’ll get much worse. This time you were just blissed out, then a little tired. Next time, the tiredness won’t go away. And Aurora always has some pretty word for the symptoms.”
My pulse stumbled hard against my rubs. “Integration?”
“Yeah.”
“And whatever it takes…that’s what they want?”
“Part of it.”
