Black Magic

Chapter Fifteen

We don't move until my eyes run dry. The stuffy, aching tightness in my chest lingers as I pull away from Sixten's hold, leaning my head back against the wall. My entire body aches, and my head isn't much better.

Sixten's hand tightens in my hair, his other hand sliding up my arm to press tight against my shoulder. "Are you hurt?" His thumb rubs small, slow circles into my scalp. His hands—they're still trembling. "Did any of them hurt you? I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner—"

My eyes flutter shut, my entire body melting into exhaustion. Everything hurts. My head is pounding, and every inch of my body is sore in one way or another. But—but I'm safe. As safe as I can be. I open my eyes to see Sixten just staring at me, his silver eyes big and bright, his face set in something like fear. He looks almost more terrified than me. And—there's still a sharpness to his eyes, an over-saturation of his energy in the air. Strong enough to leak past the iron cuffs. It's the desperate, frantic rage of a monster; the darkness in my chest responds in kind, and I lean against the hand in my hair.

"I'm—it could be worse." I lift my right hand, flexing my fingers. Blood drips from the wounds left by my own dagger. Maybe I'll get a scar to complement the one on my left hand. "I just—I need to get out of here." Sixten nods. "Is it safe? Are they—" my throat closes, panic a vice grip around my throat.

"They're all dead," Sixten promises. His eyes burn like molten silver.

"What about Emil?" It comes out in a jumbled rush and Sixten blinks at me, clearly confused. "Shit. Right. He was, um—" My breath catches in my throat when I lean to the side to see past Sixten and see the pool of blood around Emil's body. His skin is ashy, his neck barely more than flaps of flesh and muscle and sinew. "Oh my God," I choke out, bringing a hand to my mouth. "I didn't—I couldn't even tell he was dead." More blood on my hands. Literally, this time. And I can't get it out of my head—that I killed someone, deliberately and viciously. It's not the first time but it's different because I'm conscious, it was all me, the darkness is still trapped behind the iron.

Sixten's hand tightens on my shoulder. "Desdemona." His voice is even, his gaze hard as he stares at me. For a moment he seems so calm, despite the minute trembling of his shoulders and the blood staining his mouth and dripping down his chin. "He deserved it."

"I know—I know that, I know he did." As scared as Emil seemed, he still attacked me. But that doesn't—it doesn't make what I did any different. "It isn't about him. It's me—I killed him."

Sixten cocks his head to the side. "Haven't you . . . didn't you say you'd already killed?"

I shake my head, rattling my brain and wincing at the sharp pain slicing through my skull. The hand in my hair massages my scalp. "That was—different. I was something different, then. The darkness—it just made me instinctive and scared and I just killed because I needed to escape, but I didn't feel it. That part of me wasn't in control." It's so—strange, putting it into words. "I don't know. I know it doesn't make sense but I was just different."

Sixten nods. His hands move to my cheeks—warm and big and impossibly gentle—and he traces his thumb across my cheekbone like he's wiping away the tracks of my tears. "I'm so sorry you've been forced to go through this."

His eyes are so—intense, bright and shadowed all at once. My eyes flicker down to the floor. "Yeah. I just—I want to go home."

The warmth of Sixten's hands leaving my face makes me shiver. He stands, drawing up to his full height, and extends one hand down to me. I take it and he pulls me up gently, without even a grunt of effort, steadying me with a hand on my elbow when my legs threaten to buckle. "Let me remove these," he says, and snaps the thin iron cuffs as easily as brittle plastic.