Page 70 of What Is Dark Within Me

If it came down to you or the world and everyone in it, I would choose you every time.

“Go upstairs. Go to sleep. I’ll find you after training tomorrow,” Nicolas said.

“Stop trying to boss me around.”

“I’m sorry, dove,” he told her, and she could feel the way he smiled against her hair, even if she couldn’t see it.

* * *

A Spell of Desire

Illegible.The entire entry has been blacked out. In the margins are several drawings of eyes and the words:

I don’t want to go back, but it’s going to make me. It’ll wait until I sleep, and I’m always sleeping now, even when my eyes are open.

8

A SPELL TO FIND YOUR WAY HOME

“I feel pretty terrible about this,”Aleja admitted, wiping her palms against her pants. “Maybe we should get Taddeas to go with us?”

Nicolas smiled. “You’re either guilty or scared. Which is it?”

“Both,” she said. “You’re really not going to hurt Liam?”

“Hunting isn’t allowed near the palace grounds because I don’t want a stray arrow to hit the gardeners. It’s not exactly an executable offense, dove. But if he’s not who he says he is, then we’ll get to test how well our magic works together,” Nicolas told her.

“I’m not killing anyone else,” she said.

Nicolas looked at his shoes. For a moment, she expected him to tell her she might have to. After all, she’d been a soldier once—a killer—and who knew how many had died as she released torrents of fire onto a battlefield? Then, she remembered the tenderness with which he had lifted her off the floor of James’s hallway, while a room full of priceless artifacts burned on the other side of the door.

“If it comes down to that, I’ll make the final blow,” he said, his hand grazing her wrist.

The woods were quiet, aside from the mournful hoot of an owl in the distance. It always seemed to be a full moon in the Hiding Place, but tonight, its light was heavy and blue—the sort of color you could drown in.

“I don’t think he’s going to be keen to show up if I have you with me,” she muttered.

“Relax, dove. I can still go unnoticed, even among Otherlanders. Maybe you should try to act naturally. You look stiff.”

“Iamstiff,” she hissed back. “Why do you keep calling me that? It seems out of character.”

“For you?” he asked.

“No, foryou, Mr. Big Spooky Knowing One.”

“It started as an inside joke,” he admitted. “But I thought it suited you, and you never seemed to mind. For Our Lady of Wrath, you were always the first to push for peace.”

She fell silent, unsure of how to continue this conversation. It felt like she was standing at the end of the bridge with Nicolas waiting for her on the other side. As always, he looked confident as he beckoned her forward, but he didn’t realize the bridge was broken at the center. That Aleja couldn’t reach him, even if she darted across at full speed and attempted to jump over the gap.

And yet you’re thinking about trying anyway, said the voice.

“I can tell you the entire story, if you like.”

“You should try telling me stuff when we’renottrying to be stealthy. We’re almost there. Make yourself scarce, Knowing One.”

The clearing was empty, aside from a few jumping mice grazing on blueberries until her footsteps scattered them.

“See? You scared him away,” she whispered, after leaning against a tree for a full twenty minutes, listening for the sound of snapping twigs and trying to figure out where Nicolas was hiding.

---