Page 82 of What Is Dark Within Me

Just because you can’t remember the choice you made, doesn’t mean you didn’t make it.

“Don’t say anything. There is no answer you could give that wouldn’t destroy me. I only wanted you to know. Go. Find Violet. What happens after is my problem,” Nicolas said, unaware of the internal dialogue he’d interrupted.

But it was as if the tree roots had unfurled and wrapped around her ankles, keeping her in place. Her voice started as a shout, then faded to a whisper as she realized how loud it was in the quiet forest. “What thefuck, Nic? You drop that bomb seconds before I’m supposed to sneak into the village-that-time-forgot and hope a Dark Saint doesn’t sic his cultists on me.”

“We might die here.”

“I know. I’ve known I might die since the minute I shook your hand in the cellar, but I did it anyway. You don’t get to say something like that and expect me to walk away like it doesn’t matter to me at all.”

“Does it? Matter?”

She took a deep breath to keep the heat in her belly from spilling into the world as fire. A part of her wondered if this wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. If she’d screamed at him for what he’d done; if she’d been grateful to be alive; if she’d already decided to take his punishment when he dragged her across a battlefield littered with people killed in her name.

“We’re in this together,” she said at last, knowing that if she tried for anything else, she would set the forest ablaze. “Be careful.”

Aleja turned, heading toward the distant sound of a hammer hitting metal. She wished she were back in the Hiding Place, where her grandmother was only a staircase’s climb away. The world was so much more complicated than it had been a few months ago and her feelings toward Nicolas were like a knot—a hopelessly tangled thing whose threads looped in on themselves the more she tugged them.

The worst of it was she could understand how he felt. If any of the people in this village had hurt her friend, she would burn it to the ground.

The line around the well had dissipated, and few people milled about the main square; mostly young women carrying baskets of winter vegetables, taking a break to pass a loaf of bread between them. Roland was nowhere to be seen, but she wondered if she could feel his presence. There was something tremulous in the air, as if it were filled with ignitable gas.

Wait for my signal before starting your search, Nicolas had said. It’ll be obvious.

He must have been moving away from her. The pain in her gut was already noticeable.

Then came what sounded like a wolf’s howl, if that wolf’s throat was filled with crushed glass. A woman in the square dropped her basket and bright yellow gourds rolled in every direction across the cobblestone streets.

“Into your homes. Lock your doors,” someone ordered. Roland emerged from the building opposite Aleja. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, a bloodstain on his hands, as if he’d been helping to butcher the deer brought in this morning. Only his mask was clean, the feathers an untouched shade of silvery white.

She waited until he passed the house, then made her way into the square. The women had obeyed Roland’s command and scattered, disappearing to a rhythm of slamming doors. She’d already discounted most of these buildings as Violet’s likely hiding place. They were too heavily trafficked, too central to the flow of daily life, but she’d seen a cabin near the western boundary where a man entered with a bowl of stew and left empty-handed.

With the village empty, her glamour was hardly needed. A few eyes peered from behind murky glass, but they glided over her as if she was one of the barn cats hunting mice on the streets.

The cabin was locked, but she spotted a half-shuttered window with a gap she could peer into. Inside was a room so beset by cobwebs that they dangled like strips of fabric from the ceiling. A path carved through the dust led from the front door to a shadowy area that could have been a stairway to a root cellar.

Nicolas, where are you? Aleja thought, looking back at the village. Her vision blurred with each stomach cramp. Another few moments and she might no longer be able to stand. A second pained howl came from the forest, but there was no sign of either him or Roland among the buildings.

With no time to search for a key, she yanked out an axe embedded in a nearby stump, a thought turning to dread the longer it sat with her. Chopping her way through the shutters was going to be loud. Maybe loud enough to break the glamour and draw the attention of eyes peering from behind the windows.

She took a swing, realizing too late she should have let Violet teach her to chop wood. The axe-head crashed through the thin shutters, creating an opening not quite wide enough for her to squeeze through. But a second strike did the trick, sending splinters flying in every direction.

Aleja didn’t hesitate. The clock was ticking double-time. She hauled herself over the window ledge, wincing as the jagged remains of the shutters scraped across her arms. A cloud of dust rose as she dropped into the cabin, most of which got stuck in the cobwebs.

“Violet?” She coughed. It triggered a dry retch, but for once, she hadn’t eaten more than a handful of fries. Aleja’s legs shook, but she summoned a sphere of fire from her hands and the cobwebs overhead shriveled in the rush of heat.

The room smelled of humans in a cramped space; sweat, urine, and what reminded her of overripe fruit. She listened for a commotion as she crept toward the root cellar, but the sole sound was the thud of her boots against the wooden floor. Her hand shook around the axe handle as she crept down the stairs.

A woman sat slumped in the corner. Her hair was so dirty, it would have looked gray if not for a flash of dull yellow in the light of Aleja’s magic. She recoiled while looking up, backing away as much as the zip ties around her ankles and wrists would allow.

“Violet,” Aleja breathed, rushing to her side as the woman turned her head up and gave a wild-eyed glance around the room. Beside her lay an upended bowl spreading whatever broth was left inside into the cracked wooden floorboards.

The woman stared at Aleja through milky eyes. She barely looked like the smiling Violet from the travel blogs; her cheeks were gaunt, and her skin translucent enough to expose the web of capillaries beneath it. Aleja could feel the heat of a fever without having to touch her.

Violet’s jaw was slack, her eyelids drooping. A sleepwalker’s face. A rasping wheeze came from her until she forced a swallow. “No, no. You’re a dream. It’s always trying to trick me.”

“I’m real. It’s going to be okay,” Aleja said. The axe was too large to wedge between the zip ties, but she could slice through them with the tip of the sickle. Violet sagged into Aleja, as if she could no longer sit up on her own. “Can you walk?”

Another figure lay among a pile of rusted garden tools, her back turned away from them. Aleja jumped, nearly dropping the sickle, but the body didn’t move.

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