Page 215 of Mud

“Please,”I thought I whispered one more time, or maybe it was just my imagination.

Please stop, all of you. I am not worth it. I promise, I am not. Just take this magic and let me go.

My jaws barely moved. Was I even doing it? Was I giving him that energy that still refused to settle inside me?

No idea.

One last time I forced myself to open my eyes, to look at his face, and I almost wished I hadn’t.

Taland’s skin was white. Not pale, but white, except the deep black under his eyes. His hair stuck to his sweat-covered forehead, and he seemed to have lost fifty pounds in the last few seconds. His teeth were gritted, his eyes on me, though it felt like he couldn’t even see me.

It seemed like nobody was home.

I love you,I thought, anyway, because I knew we were both going to die here today, and my last wish was for him to hear my most important truth. To understand it.

It was never a lie, Taland. I love you. Please take the magic…

The words remained inside me. I don’t know if he saw them in my eyes, but I thought them loudly. I thought them clearly, until my lids became too heavy to keep open.

My mind shut down completely, leaving me something even worse than simply Rosabel La Rouge.

Leaving me the victor of the Iris Roe in the middle of the Drainage, costing the man she lovedeverythingonce again.

Chapter 39

Taland Tivoux

Present, five days ago

Rosabel La Rouge was in my arms. Unconscious. Bleeding.Dying.

My own whispers startled me. I hadn’t realized I was using my magic until it came out of my hands and slipped into her body, a third-degree healing spell that would take away that infection on her leg thattheyhadn’t healed. Thattheyhad caused.

Which begged the question,why?

My magic slipped into her body and I didn’t need to look at her leg to know it had worked. My magic always worked. And she was still there, passed out in my arms while the world around us continued to exist. While the residents of the Blue House continued to eat and party like always.

My thoughts were struggling to catch up with what mysenses were telling me. Here I was, trying to think of a way to see her again, to get close to her without anybody noticing, and she came right to my door.

She came to the Blue House, wounded and bleeding and alone—and in those moments, I didn’t care what had happened before, what she’d done, where I’d been, how we’d ended up here. In those moments, I just wanted to find those responsible and break them apart limb by limb. I would take my time with it, enjoy it more than anything in the world.

“Rosabel,” I whispered, as if hearing her name might make this make more sense.

It didn’t.

She was still here, still in my arms, and I was already chanting another healing spell to make sure that wound on her leg closed for good.

You shouldn’t have come here, sweetness,I thought, as my mind raced—now for a different reason. As my mind raced to figure out how to take her away before anyone saw. Before anyone noticed?—

“Taland.”

Every drop of blood in me froze. I turned to look at Radock, my eldest brother, a spitting image of our father if the pictures we had of him were anything to go by. He was already here, his eyes on Rosabel lying limp in my arms, and I already knew it was done.

My options just became severely limited.

Fuck.

No time to get angry now, only time to figure out my next move.

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