The Keepers' Evil

Thirteen: Sebastian, there you are

Song- Stick season: Noah Kahan

"Sebastian! There you are."

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"I won't let you do it." Sebastian reinstated as if the second time would hold my eyes open a little longer to see the danger. The truth was, I could see the danger of continuing Isidora's path, I could feel the danger swimming in the depths of my veins with every drip of blood that pumped through my now tainted arms, but Anne lived the danger.

"That isn't for you to decide, Sebastian. I don't need permission to save your sister. Thank me later when she's still around in fifteen years time." Anger scored Sebastian's flushed face like the sharp nails of my rebellion had dug too deep, like they had scratched wake up into his skin like a hot iron brand.

"And where will you be, Madeleine? I'll be sat here, watching Anne and Ominis live the life they could've only dreamed of-" Sebastian paused abruptly as his mind could only envision an opaque snapshot of the future, his eyes blurry with the want, but never full of the promise.

"And I'll be right here, still, because you'll be dead and I'll never be able to live knowing I could've done more to stop you," his voice teetered on the edge of a shout, each step he took backing me slowly towards the door, my fingers cushioning the fall of my spine against the wood.

"I will not let you do it." I had underestimated the chills that he sent down my spine when his voice reverted back to a whisper. My body curled against the uncomfortably cold door as his hands fell on either side of my head, his eyes level with mine as our breaths shared a shudder.

Had Anne's painful splutter from behind the door not interrupted the gripping power that Sebastian felt he had over me, I would've let it all in and simply said okay, because the tears in his eyes were too permanent and the losses in his life were too frequent.

"She's going to die, Sebastian, why should she die when I can do something?" It was a little ironic that I was the one pleading Sebastian when it had been the other way round for so long. Sebastian had trudged through the deepest, lowest, depths of the darkest magic and he had dragged us all there with him far too many times in the name of saving Anne.

He pressed his head into the warm space of my neck, seeking some kind of connection that he knew would lead him back to me, not who we were there in that moment, but who we were when we had first met and our friendship had twinkled with the love that didn't quite know how to present itself as love. Despite the want for more but the inability to know how to ask for it, we were happy.

Truly happy.

"We will find another way, love." Sebastian knew as well as I did that there was no other way, that maybe if we were lucky, we'd be standing at Anne's funeral in a few weeks rather than days. I nestled into his touch, letting the feeling of him hold the pieces of me together, letting the scent of him settle my anxieties like a calming draught.

I love you.

You love me.

Too much.

I could hear the muffled panic in Ominis from behind the door as Anne coughed up the curse that sat like a mass in her lungs. I could feel the heaviness to my own as I pictured how the magic tore her apart, the pain cracking her in two. Ominis' persistent you're okay's were accompanied with the violent undertones of I wish we had longer that begged me to do something.