Page 106 of Moonmarked

Might as well own it, especially sincehewas responsible for it in the first place.

“Yes, well, I suppose I should askyouabout it because you did it to me. You gave me that energy when you did the life-bond that day in the meadow.” And now that the cat was out of the bag, maybe we could even talk about it, and I could understand exactly what the hell seemed to be so wrong with me. Why Maera’s scratch hadn’t killed or shifted me. Why I hadglowedthat night when I went to Raja.

The image of her face was still in front of my eyes. She’d been positively terrified.

Except…

“Oh, I didn’t do that, Nilah. That wasn’t me—Icouldn’thave done it to you if I’d tried,” Lyall said, a strange smile on his lips, his eyes so…fullagain. Of curiosity. Of suspicion.

And unfortunately for me, his every word rang true.

“Of course, it was you, Lyall. Who else? I was a mortal, and I was about to die. Then you healed me, and when you left, I could make the same light with my hands. Of course, it was you,” I said, and I’d say it a million more times until he believed it.

UntilIbelieved it.

Because, again, Lyall sounded so sure of himself, and then that half-ruined painting, and the words of that sorcerer chained to the altar…

Too much.Everything was becoming too fucking much and I wasn’t sure how much more I could endure.

“But it isn’t,” Lyall said, shaking his head. “It isn’t the same magic as mine. I feel it, Nilah. It’s not Seelie magic that goes through you.” Again, he looked down at my body like that, and I was fully dressed in a white shirt and golden pants, but I felt naked. Completely exposed. It took everything not to wrap my arms around myself, only because I didn’t want him to know just how vulnerable I felt right now. “The seer could find you with my blood before. Now, it can’t. I’ve been making her try every day. And your energy has changed as well. It’s not the same as when I first saw you. I know something happened.”

Oh, God…

“I was hoping that in time, you would see that I am trustworthy, Nilah. I was hoping you would tell me the truth.”

Trustworthy,he said. The same guy who took Rune’s win without batting an eye in the Illusion Game and never said a word about it.

I raised my chin, some deep instinct taking over, one that didn’t trust him at all. It wasn’tconfusedabout Lyall the way I was most of the time—he’s honest, he’s lying, maybe he’s a good guy, maybe he’s hiding something—no, this heavy feeling inside me didn’t trust him at all, and so I said, “There is no truth, Lyall. You did something to me when you healed me, and now my hands light up and I can sometimes make things float on air. That’s it.”

For the longest second, he looked at me. Only looked at me with those wide, unblinking eyes.

“Can you show me?” he then said.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. I can’t control it. It only comes when it wants, usually after I wake up in the morning.” The lie flowed easily simply because my whole life it had been a truth.

“Then can you meet with the seer and haveherfind exactly what you have?”

“Whatyou gaveto me,” I insisted, and Lyall nodded.

“Fine—what I gave to you. Will you sit with her, Nilah?” Finally, he sounded a bit irritated.

Fuck, no,was my first thought.

“No offense to you or your seer—but I don’t know that woman well enough to let her do her magic on me.” Just the thought of her in that white dress coming close to me, putting her spells on me—no, thank you.

“She’s our seer, Nilah. She’s sacred,” Lyall said, like he was genuinely surprised that I’d say something like that.

“Not to me, she isn’t,” I insisted. “And besides—I don’t need to know what I have. It will be gone the moment we do the unbinding ceremony, right?”

Lyall was silent for a moment, and in my mind the questions had already begun. Because what if letting that seer look at me would actually give me answers? What if itwasn’t dangerous—what if she would tell me exactly what Lyall had done, and how it had affected me, and most importantly—why?

“I don’t know that, Nilah. Like I said, a fae can never give his power to a mortal no matter what. So, I don’t know what you are and?—”

Fuck, those words.

“A human being,” I cut him off, my voice ice-cold. “I’m a human being from Earth and you know it.”

Except human beings from Earth can’t make shit float on air, can they?That was thought that went through Lyall’s mind, too, as he looked at me. I’d bet anything on it.

---