“Stop saying that, you big… something.” Ella giggled and grabbed me in a hug.
I laughed. I hugged back, cheek tingling.
She went stiff.
And I realised.
Her warm cheek was on mine.
The gasp tore through me as I shoved her away. Perry caught her rigid body.
Rose guffawed. “Didn’t know you were that drunk.”
Ari squeezed her arm, staring.
From Ella’s cheek, blackened tendrils spread across her skin. Her whimper woke me from my horrified stupor.
The world pitched like someone had pulled the ground itself from beneath my feet.
I’d poisoned Ella.
I’d…
My heart leapt, like it just needed one great beat to force blood into me and make me move.
I tore off my necklace and fumbled with the lid, my shaking hands useless. Perry went to help. “Don’t touch me!”
Ella wheezed, fingers clawing as an awful high-pitched sound came from her throat, like she was trying to scream but didn’t have breath to.
Quickly. Quickly.
My vision tunnelled to the potion bottle, and I dragged in a breath, held it, and gripped the lid. I turned it, chin wobbling as Ella went silent.
She was dying. Maybe already dead. I’d killed her.
Oh gods, I’d killed her.
“How many fucking times does this thing need to turn before it comes off?” My voice broke as I shouted, every part of me raw.
Then, with a soft clink, the lid dropped to the floor.
Ella lay still. So, so still.
My ears roared, leaving only muffled sounds in the rest of the room.
Move. Fucking move, Katherine.
Holding the precious bottle in both hands, I bent over Ella and tipped the antidote into her gaping mouth.
“Please.” I didn’t know who I begged, but I did. “Please.”
I waited.
She didn’t move.
It was just a hug. The thing I’d wanted from her for so long. A hug.
On the edge of my awareness, Rose held Ari, who buried her face in Rose’s chest. Perry sat back on her heels.
“Do something,” Ari sobbed.
There was nothing more I could do. The antidote was supposed to work. I’d left it too late. I was too slow. The lid.
It was just a hug.
I covered my face and shook my head, taking a long moment to realise I was still whispering it over and over again: “Please. Please. Please.”
A choked cry filled the antechamber.
“Ella?” Perry’s low voice barely registered over my begging.
Ella sat up, clutching her throat, sucking in great lungfuls of air. Pale, yes, but the dark veins had gone.
Rose laughed, and Ari launched at Ella, flinging her arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Good fucking gods,” Ella rasped. “Fuck. Fuck.” She looked up at me and chuckled. Maybe relief. Maybe hysteria.
I fell back, pressing myself against the wall, like its solidity might bring sense to the world.
I’d almost killed Ella. For a few seconds, I had.
The knowledge crashed into me, a boulder dropped from above.
All for the sake of a hug.
How had I been so stupid? So selfish? So… uncontrolled.
“Get out.”
“It’s all right.” Ella smiled the same smile that had been so infectious earlier. “I mean, it hurt like hells, but, I feel fine now.”
I would never have seen that smile again if…
The low-level hum against my skin intensified.
“Get out.”
“Kat.” Perry reached out before snatching her hand back and giving me an apologetic smile. “I know you’re afraid, but—”
Everything hazed purple.
Perry’s eyes widened.
I scrambled for the sitting room, crying, “Get out!”
45
Bastian
I burst into the antechamber. Coats littered the floor, and amongst them glinted the lid of Kat’s potion bottle pendant.
As soon as Rose had appeared at the door to her and Faolán’s home, face tearstained, I’d known something was very wrong. Thank the Stars, Ella was alive and apparently fine. I’d left Rose in Faolán’s arms and raced back to the palace. A guard was fetching Asher to have him check on Ella, while I’d sprinted down the corridors to get back here.
My chest was too tight, and not because of the run.
“Kat?” I called into the dim living room. No sign of her, though the scent of her magic hung in the air, thick and sweet.
I tried her bedroom next, then her bathroom, half expecting to find her throwing up in the toilet. I even checked my room, thinking perhaps she’d be curled up in my bed, sobbing. She wasn’t.
It was only when I went into the dining room that I found her in the midst of her party decorations. Afternoon sun spilled through the window, lighting up a small shape at the wall’s base—knees hugged tight, face pressed against them.
“Kat.” I sighed out her name, unspeakably relieved to find her. The fear she’d run had been a tight knot in my belly that only now untied. If she was here, I could help her. If she’d gone…
“I poisoned Ella. I—”
“I know.” Crouching before her, I placed my hand on her head. That only made her pull tighter. “It’s me. You can’t hurt me, remember.”
Her shoulders shook, and I couldn’t tell if the sound she made was a sob or bitter laughter. My shadows caressed her hands and feet. Eventually, she lifted her head, pushing into my touch.
“I nearly killed her, Bastian.” The desperate look she gave was a sledgehammer, breaking every part of me.
I had to swallow and take my time stroking her hair before I could pull myself back together and reply. “You didn’t, though. Rose told me. You gave her the antidote, and Asher’s checking her over now. She’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.”
“It isn’t. You call magic a gift, but this is a curse. I’m never going to be able to touch anyone. I’m never going to be able to control it.” Her chest heaved, and her lip wavered for a second before she clenched her jaw and drew herself up. “If there’s no cure… I’m going to have to live alone for fear of hurting someone.”
Despite her straight back and set jaw, I saw how fragile she was beneath it, how ready to fall apart. I wanted to take her to my workroom and try every trick and technique I knew to put her back together.
“She hugged me. And I wanted it so badly, I didn’t…” She shook her head, gaze dropping as she frowned. “I didn’t even realise. I forgot about my poison. When she arrived in Tenebris and I had to tell her she couldn’t touch me, she looked like I’d punched her the face. And it felt like that to me too.”
“I know.” It was a shitty, useless response, but I had no other words.
I’d seen her reaction and Ella’s. I’d seen how hard it was for Kat to push away Vespera. It had broken my fucking heart.
Kat stared at her hands, clenching and unclenching her stained fingers. “My skin feels wrong and tight, like it needs life the same way plants need water. People aren’t meant to be alone, are they?”