Page 80 of Thornlight

Emmi, leaning against Bartos, coughed a horrible, racking cough. Ugly bruises bloomed on her pale throat. They were shaped like Thorn’s fingers.

“I’m all right,” Thorn said quietly, her tongue too big for her mouth, her head fuzzy and aching. “I won’t hurt her.”

Quicksilver released Thorn, and Thorn, hearing Emmi’s rasping breaths, felt sure she was going to be sick.

She turned and ran.

On a soft pile of yellow moss, beside a shallow brook in a bed of tiny lavender rocks, Thorn sat in silence, knees pulled to her chest. She scratched her forearms and shins until it hurt.

Her goggles sat atop her head. Her eyes had been adjusting to the brightness of the Star Lands, but it still smarted to look directly at any color, even the soft lavender river rocks. That was a good thing.

She had hurt Emmi, and now she deserved to hurt.

As she stared at the brook, her eyes watering, Thorn realized it had feltgoodto hurt Emmi, though she didn’t know why. Looking back, it was like seeing someone else—a Thorn whowas notreallyThorn, leaping out of the bushes and knocking Emmi flat.

Thorn wiped her nose. The Thorn of the past would never have hurt someone, would never havedreamedof it. Past-Thorn would have cowered in the ferns and done what everyone told her to do. Maybe they would have ignored her altogether. Maybe they would have forgotten she was there.

No one could ignore a girl who’d strangled a grown woman she’d never even met before.

Thorn pressed her cheek harder into her knee, watching the sparkling water slip and trickle and rush. She felt the familiar start of tears—the hateful, hot tingling in her nose, her tightening throat—and shut her eyes, willing the feeling away.

A quiet moment passed. Then a soft weight pressed into the moss beside Thorn. Without opening her eyes, Thorn knew who it was from the slight stormy charge in the air.

Zaf.

Zaf,Zaf. Thorn said the name over and over in her mind. Each time made it easier to breathe.

Zaf hooked her arm through Thorn’s and pressed her cheek against Thorn’s shoulder. “I still like you, Thorn. I hope you know that. I like you very much.”

Thorn squeezed her eyes shut. Zaf’s voice rasped, her breathing was thin and wheezing, and it got worse every day, even with the tonic Sly Boots kept giving her.

Then Thorn thought of something.

The shadow-struck unicorn in the swamp had touched her.

And now she was touchingZaf...

Panic exploded inside her. Why had she never thought of this before?

“Don’t touch me!” Thorn cried, shoving Zaf away.

But Zaf did not look afraid, even though her breath rattled and her hands hardly glowed, her skin wan and dull.

“Me being weak has nothing to do with you,” Zaf said firmly. “It’s only because I used too much magic to get us here. And besides, I’ve already touched you, and so has Quicksilver, and Bartos, and everyone. We’ve all talked about it and decided. If we’re infected by the Gulgot too, then we’re infected. We’re not going to hold our noses around you.”

“So... you all know?” Thorn whispered.

“Noro told us,” said Zaf. “He said he wasn’t sure until what just happened. He said he was trying to convince himself it wasn’t true.”

Thorn closed her eyes and looked away. So they knew. Theyall knew about thisthinginside her, this dark, grinning web.

Would they try to take it from her?

Did shewantthem to?

“My hand got scraped when I fell before,” she whispered, “so it was hurt when I touched that shadow-struck unicorn, and I think that’s when...”

She couldn’t say anything more.

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