Page 47 of Cursed

“Where are you going?” I called after him.

“To talk to Titus,” Valen growled.

No, not yet.

“Hey!” I pushed away from the workbench and ran after him. I grabbed hold of his elbow and yanked him back, but Valen let out a grunt of surprise and lashed out with his magic to knock me back.

My boots skidded on the stained concrete, but I didn’t stumble.

“We need a plan,” I said. “You can’t just… march up to Titus and tell him—”

“Can’t I?” Valen shot back.

“No!” I snapped, losing patience. “You do, and he’ll go straight to Lucian. And then all of this,” I gestured vaguely to the surrounding darkness, “will go up in fucking flames.”

The lines on Valen’s face deepened as he turned from me and brushed a hand through his tangled hair. He was silent for a long moment before finally turning back to me. The anger had faded somewhat, replaced by something more akin to desperation.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” He asked, his voice hard but not hostile. It wasn’t an invitation for a fight, it was a genuine question. And that worried me more than anything else.

For once in my life, I didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t know,” I confessed quietly.

“Then we’re fucked,” Valen growled and kicked at a piece of gravel bleakly.

“And Avril?” I dared to ask.

There was silence for what felt like eternity before Valen spoke again. “We have to protect her from that book— and from Lucian.”

I nodded, although I couldn’t figure out how we would do that—or what it would cost us. Lucian seemed to know everything before it happened—and if he knew we had planned to undermine him, there was no telling what might happen.

“But how are we supposed to do that— I don’t know how Titus is going to react… How do we plan for something like this?”

Valen snorted. “Great, so we’re just gonna wing it? I can’t believe you don’t have a plan. You always have a plan. I thought you’d come here to gloat—”

I shot him a glare, and my patience thinned. “If you’ve got a better idea, feel free to share.”

Silence stretched between us, broken only by the occasional rustle of nocturnal creatures within the forest that crowded the borders of the estate. Valen stared back at me defiantly, but offered no suggestions.

“Well?” I challenged.

“Alright,” he reluctantly admitted after a while. “We have to talk to Avril—”

“About what?”

Valen shook his head. “She’s not stupid, Bastian. If she’s aware of the dangers....”

“You think she’ll willingly give up the grimoire? She wouldn’t just… hand over that kind of power.” I folded my arms over my chest skeptically.

“If she knows that it will put her in danger?” Valen shrugged. “Yeah, I think she would.”

A humorless chuckle slipped past my lips. “You have a lot of faith in her.”

“She’s not like us,” he insisted. “She’s innocent.”

“Nobody is innocent, Valen. Not in this world.” I looked out at the dimly lit estate and the shadows creeping up on us from the surrounding forests. “Especially not when they get tangled up with the likes of us.”

He didn’t argue this time. Perhaps he was finally beginning to understand the reality of the situation.

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