"Trust me, you shouldn't want anyone like me on your back."
"Maybe I don't want anyone like you on my back," His eyes darkened as he stepped closer, confining me tighter into barely any space as my back pressed against the wall.
"Maybe I want you. U...
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON ME, I thought as I woke up that morning. The Ilvermorny sky was a patterned canvas dipped in the brightening hues of the deepest oranges and pinks. I had woken up just before the sun—for the latter had not graced a glimpse yet, let alone dominate the sky.
I knew he wouldn't. I knew God's mercy was restricted to the privileged alone, ones who were not connected to dark, bloodthirsty wizards terrorizing the very land God would have created. He would look at me—if he even existed—and laugh in the face of my request.
Mercy? Dominique Marie Grindelwald, you can have none of that.
The cool air washed through my skin, seeping into my bones as I made my way to shower. It was until I had stripped, and the scalding hot water hit my skin, did I realize how stiff my body was. I had slept the little hours of last night, the hours that Agilbert Fontaine had spared us by cutting his impromptu announcement session short. The hours that felt like mere minutes now, making me ask if I had even slept.
Nurmengard was today. I would be paying the visit to my great uncle today, and nobody knew it but me. I wished again then, that Gregorovitch knew. He had asked me to in the first place, hadn't he? If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have been setting my sights to the Austrian Alps and the prison castle wedged amongst its snowy mountains. I wished he knew, just for the small consolation of having somebody know the trials in your head—albeit if only a single one.
He had known, and he still might if I hadn't tampered with his head. I just needed to repeat that fact in my mind and force myself to believe it and rely on the truth of it. Somebody would know then, that I was going to face my great uncle after not having seen him since I was ten. I would face him now, the consequences of all his actions a veil in front of his withered form, where a ten year old child had been blind to them before.
I wanted somebody to know, but I didn't want anybody to know. A dilemma I couldn't place, one layered with so many skins of iron, that I couldn't peel back each one despite how hard I tried.
