I lifted my gaze. “Daniel knows me better than anyone else.”
Oliver’s face hardened—his posture too. Even his single word, “Oh,” was made of stone. Then suddenly he pushed his face into mine. “And does Daniel know you just crossed into the spirit realm? Because I know.”
“I forgot to cast my dream ward.”
“Really? After almost losing your life to the Hell Hounds several times, you simply forgot the one thing that keeps you safe. Sorry, El, but I do not believe you.” He twisted away and stomped to the porthole. “Your grief makes you a fool.”
I stretched my hands toward him. “Please heal me, Ollie.” My voice cracked. I wanted his magic—and not just for the wounds. I needed it to soften the blade gouging out my insides.
“No.” Oliver planted his hands on the wall and stared out the window. “What were you thinking, El? I can’t protect you if you’re in the spirit realm, and you can’t set me free if you’re dead. Recall: death already claimed your brother, and that is what got us in this demon-and-master tangle in the first place. So please—for my sake—stop being such a bloody idiot.”
I flinched. “You are as volatile as Daniel is.”
“Temperamental, perhaps,” Oliver admitted, swinging his gaze to me. “But only when you have earned it. Daniel is cruel whenever his feelings are hurt.”
“Do not,” I spat, “try to turn me against Daniel. I love him, and your words will not change that.”
Oliver snorted and turned back to the porthole. “He puts you through quite a lot of heartbreak for love—”
“Enough.” I crossed the room and thrust my hands at him. “I want these cuts healed, so do it.”
“You want me to heal your grief, you mean.” He withdrew his flask and gulped back liquor. “Just admit it, El. You want me to erase all your sadness. Well, I fear I cannot. Nothing can heal that sort of wound. Though you might try this.” He offered me the flask.
“No.” A frustrated hunger burned in my stomach, briefly erasing the stab of loss. The knife of regret. “You will heal me now, Ollie.”
“Or what?” He straightened. “Will you command me?”
“Yes.”
His eyes flashed. “Do it then. Command your tool. Just as you did last night when you scorched away part of my very being with electricity. Just as you always do when you want something.”
My breath hiccupped. I deserved Oliver’s temper for what had happened in Paris. Yet when I had commanded him to grab a crystal clamp—a device that produced electricity from quartz—I hadn’t known the electricity would kill a piece of his soul.
But he had been the one to manipulate me into binding to him. He had become my tool willingly, and he had given me a two-month deadline in which I had to set him free.
“Use me, Eleanor.” Oliver leaned toward me. “Betray me so that for that brief moment while my magic keeps you warm, you can pretend your life is not broken. Why, I bet if you tried hard enough, you could even pretend your mother is still alive.”
His words crashed into me. I rocked back on my heels, and all my guilt for mistreating him vanished.
“Heal me,” I said. “Heal my wounds now, Oliver. Sum veritas.” The words of command slid off my tongue like snakes, and instantly Oliver’s eyes ignited with bright blue magic.
His flask fell to the floor. He grabbed me and viciously squeezed my hands in his—so tightly that my cuts ripped wider and the splinters dug deeper.
Then through clenched teeth, he began to murmur. A heartbeat passed. Two more . . . until finally the warmth came—a sparkling, pure heat a thousand times more comforting than alcohol or an embrace. It washed over me, through me. It circled around my heart and then settled into every piece of my soul.
And one by one, the splinters wriggled out of my skin. The lacerations on my hands and knees closed up, and the pain around my heart eased. When the last cut was finally healed, Oliver flung away my hands and stalked to the door. “You will push everyone away,” he growled beneath his breath. “Just like he did, you will lose us all.”
He. Elijah. My brother.
Oliver grabbed for the doorknob.
“Wait,” I called. I finally felt strong again. I finally felt alive.
Stooping down, I retrieved Oliver’s flask. He drank too much, my demon. It might dull his grief, but he was wrong: magic did heal mine.
I stepped toward him. “I am not Elijah.”
“Yet you are becoming him.” His golden eyes met mine, glowing in time to his pulse. “All you care about is how the magic makes you feel. How is that so different from your brother?”
“You were the one who introduced me to power.”