Page 99 of Unraveled
Nera leans over the table, bracing herself with one arm and holding her stomach with the other as the polished surface of her marble body shifts. She’s trembling, barely staying upright. “What’s happening to me?”
The curse jumps forward and crashes into the reflective barrier between us. Hundreds of cracks spiderweb over the surface as the mirror shudders in my hand, but I feel no fear. Just pure determination.
“You are ours,”it roars, and the cracks deepen and expand. Thin strings of black poison reach out toward me. And I learn two things: One, Ash’s curse? It never leaves the primary host behind. The larger part of the spell always remains with him. In order to save Nera, I have to trick this smaller fragment into leaving her body entirely.
And two, I can read its feelings. The curse must have an imprint of how Morla felt when she cursed the fae king. Alone and angry.
The mirror isn’t magical, so I can’t hear its laments as the curse breaks it apart. My amulet shivering in my other hand sounds scared, but determined to keep me safe.
“I’m not yours,” I say in that strange language. My tongue feels heavy. “But if you leave your current host behind, perhaps I can speak with you more. She can’t do that.”
I don’t know how I do it, but as my whole body shakes, my skin lights up like a candle’s flame. Flickering on and off in a rhythm that seems to put the slimy black monster in the mirror into a trance.
It blinks its red eyes as if confused. It doesn’t like it, and I feel its displeasure.
“If you come with me, you won’t be alone anymore.” I ignore Nera calling my name and the steps that rumble outside.
“Mia!”
I shift my eyes from the mirror to Nera as she flops onto the table. Her arms have shifted from white stone to beige skin. Her fingertips grow pinker.
“Yes!”it hisses, and chaos erupts around me.
At first, the shadows push out in an explosion of poison that’s only visible to me, shattering the reflection as the curse escapes containment and moves in a cyclone toward me.
I stumble back to the chair behind me, and my world tips on its axis as black swirls of magic crawl over my glowing skin, burning me. Before they can go back to Nera, I lift my amulet to catch them.
Please, hold it, I ask the beating stone in my hand, and it vibrates in my grasp as it begins to suck in the blackness of the curse.
Nera groans, and Ash is almost here. His magic is warm and pushes against the darkness that’s extended from the broken mirror.
Every inch of my skin that thing touches burns like acid. I think I hear myself scream, but it might be Nera as she quivers and collapses on the ground. Her skin is no longer stone.
The darkness holds on to my amulet and clings to my skin. Someone calls my name. Ash bursts into the room, his face contorting in horror. The magic around us keeps him back.
My amulet keeps absorbing the curse until I hear the stone crack.
A screech pierces the dining room, and this time, even Ash hears it. He pales and pushes against the dark shield of pressure with his own magic. I can’t get distracted by him, instead I let another wave of my anger feed my power. My body glows brighter.
Iwilldo this.
The shadows sneak out of my pin, but instead of letting them return to Nera, I slam my hand over the amulet and grab the slimy mist with my heated fingers. Another screech pierces the room. The voice of the curse dims. It feels pleased. My fingers and hands turn black.
“No!” Ash screams, slamming his whole body against the shield of dark mist.
“Stay,” I command the curse, and to my shock, it stops trying to escape my broken amulet. The rush of adrenaline fizzles off, and my legs shake as the shadows retreat.
The room spins above me. It feels like I’m falling off a precipice and unable to reach the ground.
Warm arms catch me by my waist and pull me against a hard mass that smells of pine. The pain holding my limbs hostage doesn’t ease, even as my heartbeat slows. My vision narrows to nothingness.
“Mia, love, what did you do to yourself?”
Chapter 33
I fadein and out of consciousness for hours—maybe even days? Time doesn’t seem to matter. In my dreams, feathers rain from the sky, turning into a beast equal parts beauty and horror. It looks like the shadows of the curse, and when I welcome it with open arms, it spares a life.
Molten heat runs through my body, and distantly I hear Ash’s voice. “She’s burning up. Do something.”
