Page 64 of Blackwicket
“No offense meant, Ms. Blackwicket, but I don’t trust you.” He tilted his head, falsely apologetic. “I’m sure you understand.”
His dismissal of my help, when it had cost me to offer it, was the ultimate affront.
“Don’t trustme?I’m gambling my life on the longshot bet that you’re not just hanging around to shed blood and lap up feeble magic like the rest of the dogs.”
“Careful.”
“You’re the one who should be careful.”
My magic was riled, begging to be released following so much turmoil, so many moments of fear and anger. It was trapped, churning into darkness that threatened to solidify. Already, the edges were turning tarry. This is what my family had been forced to endure: a thousand injustices and wounds coiling and tightening like a noose.
“What are you going to do, little Curse Eater?” Inspector Harrow intoned, sensing the rise of my power, his own responding, hungry, vampiric. “What terrible mistake are you about to make?”
After witnessing his behavior at the Vapors, I understood why his magic pulled at mine, and I wanted to use it to my advantage, to prove to him I had bite.
“You treat me like I’m untrustworthy, but look at all the vile things you’ve done in the name of the Authority, of your ideals,” I said.
My magic met his, the curses in him easy to find, their shadowy shapes clear in the warm current of power, far more than could belong to a typical man. I dug in, catching a solid hold. In return, he mirrored the threat, but with his hands on my body, fingers encircling my upper arms with a force that would leave my flesh bruised. In a vicious tug, he maneuvered me towards him, my feet dragging. I wound his curses tight. They were my only leverage.
“You want vile things?” Depravity glinted in his eyes, lit by a fire inclined to blaze unbridled. “If you knew what I was thinking, you’d never sleep again. Unhook your little claws, or I’ll do it for you.”
A disturbed hive, the house reacted to the rise in energy, lured into motion by the unprotected magic pouring from us both as we remained locked in a battle of wills. I was determined to win, driven by a need to punish someone other than myself for everything. For all that I’d missed, and for my many mistakes.
I wrenched the curse forward, and as it rose, it unfolded. It had been the tip of a crag hidden by deep, murky water. It eclipsed the Inspector’s magic and infiltrated mine like a plague. Alarm plucked at my senses, but my instincts had already taken charge. Ready to let me reap what I’d sown, Inspector Harrow shifted his tight grip from my arm to my chin, turning my face to his, where wisps of curse were emerging, the taste of it slipping across my tongue, my lungs preparing to expand. But just as I began to panic, he retracted his magic, and the curse followed,much preferring where it had come from to whatever I could offer it. The power that was required to control tainted magic in the middle of an exodus was extraordinary.
There was no longer any danger of transference, but Inspector Harrow continued to entice my magic to mingle with his, turning the tables. Our mouths were nearly touching, and he inhaled deeply, a misty cloud of natural power rising from my lips. He took it from me. It should have felt as if something important had been ripped away. Instead, a languid heat spread where emptiness was meant to be.
Shaken, I grabbed hold of Inspector Harrow’s arms, gasping at the peculiar sensation of equal loss and gain.
“Maybe,” he murmured, still close enough to kiss me if he leaned in an inch more. “I should teach you a lesson about rash decisions, give you a taste of exactly what William Nightglass would do to you if you agreed to his terms.”
He was threatening to empty me, turn me inside out for my magic, draining me of everything that made me who I was. I should have flinched away. Paying no heed to his warning, I raised my chin. His hold on me loosened to allow it.
As our lips met, there was pounding at the door.
“Ms. Blackwicket! Are you there?”
The Inspector released me, and my head cleared, senses returning. I could blame him for what had happened, for befuddling me, for using magic to turn my common sense upside down. But he’d done nothing but rise to meet me.
I was glad to open the door, to put space between me and my stupidity.
Mr. Farvem stood on the porch, harried and distraught, stooped with his age more than usual.
“There you are, I’ve been so worried, I thought…my god look at you.”
I brought a hand to my face, to the crust of lifeblood there, remembering the state of myself.
“I’m alright, Mr. Farvem. It’s not mine.”
This failed to put the old man at ease.
Inspector Harrow appeared behind me, and the undertaker seemed ever more taken aback.
“Inspector, you’re here?” he said, surprised. “That’s your vehicle there?”
He looked over his shoulder at the roadster in the drive, strangely anxious. I remembered then. Mr. Farvem had a car. Why had he walked?
“I came to deliver Ms. Blackwicket home,” Inspector Harrow said.
