"Kat!"
Anya doesn't pay any attention to the mess of the makeshift workshop I created in the basement, or the fact that most of the stuff in it happens to involve sharp edges, running right across it to throw her arms around me. She's lucky I wasn't holding anything — like the screwdriver I'd just put down.
"You're covered in blood."
"Am I?"
"Yeah? You're literally bleeding, what in Tralor—?"
"Tralor, hm?"
"Whatever. Why are you bleeding? Where's Holly?"
At that, she frowns, and lets go of me. She opens her mouth, closes it, shakes her head, opens it again...
"She's dead."
"She can't be," I say. "You're alive. Adalia didn't cast that kind of spell—"
"It wasn't... it... I don't think you want me to tell you what happened. I don't want to tell you what happened. I don't want to think about it."
"Fine. Fine."
It isn't, of course. Because Holly is only involved because of me, isn't she?
If I could fly, I could have managed to help Lani on my own, and while that wouldn't change the fact that Anya did not know how to use her own 'wings'... Anya's crash had nothing to do with it.
Maybe Adalia was right.
Maybe I am cursed.
"Kat?"
"Don't."
Anya doesn't say anything, but fear flashes through her eyes for a moment. And that answers everything, doesn't it?
I turn away from her and pick up the screwdriver again — there's still a couple more screws to fix on Miss Zinvyre's watch — while trying to think of what we should do now.
The answer is that we need to warn Cira and Vaeri and Lani, of course, but I'm already anticipating the worst case scenarios. I can't see them wanting to see me, not now. Because Cira and Vaeri, at the very least, will know. I'm sure they will.
They'll know that this is all my fault.
One.
Two.
I drop the screwdriver, and ignore it rolling away under the table. I can worry about that later.
You can worry about everything else later, too.
How your friends are going to hate you.
How it's your fault.
Cursed.
Kiatsin.
"D'you want me to get that?"
"Huh?"
"The screwdriver. D'you need it?"
"No, no, I don't need it."
She darted around me and stuck her head under the table anyway, not even trying to stifle her cry of shock.
YOU ARE READING
A Rational Magic || ONC2022
FantasyWhen they're sent to stay with their aunt Jessica for the whole summer holidays, Lani and Anya Ferrin don't quite know what to think. Nothing ever seems to change in Terrenfell, but nothing's the same anymore. Between a new aunt and cousin and the...
