Page 125 of Fortress of Ambrose
It’s been four days of this. My hands aren’t even the same color anymore.
First thing each day, before coming here, I check on Ube and Erla’s progress with extraction practice. This morning Yani was helping them since she’s skilled at calling on toushana. I allowed it, but plan to check back in on things.
The worst part of satiating this dark magic in me is it forces me to relive my worst memories over and over in my head. At a point, the world goes black with rage, and I can’t hold back. Then I wake surrounded by carnage. The next day I do it all over again.
It’s like getting control of toushana means giving up control of everything else.
The door of the house I destroyed today is jammed, half the structure collapsing in on itself. It took all night to meticulously decompose the living room and kitchen inch by inch. I made sure to be thorough, to feed the darknessas muchas I could. The rest of the house will be short work tomorrow.
But the more I feed it, the hungrier it gets.
I ram the front door with my fist to shove it open. Early-morning air hits me in the face. Across the street is my work from the last three days—a heap of rotted houses. Sometimes I picture Beaulah inside one of the houses, being swept into the rot as it spreads from my fingers. It makes me smile. I am wretched to be delighted by such a thing.
I jog the trail back toward the Chateau. Still no reply from Yagrin. The day to meet with Ellery already came and went. I didn’t bother replying. Quell is right. He is desperate.
When I reach the southernmost wall of the estate, I pull myself up and over it, using the rose vines as leverage, smoothing a bit of toushana across them to thicken their stems. The Chateau is a dot in the distance. I racetoward it, follow the broom closet back inside, and slip down the halls to the Healer office. But Abby’s door is back on its hinges and locked. The lights are off. My hands ache. My side, too. I detour to Sunrise Corridor to check on Ube and Erla in the lab. Abby can’t have gone far for long.
The siblings are in the session room, bickering. Between them is a large boulder on a table. Erla is wearing an oversized T-shirt. No frills on her wrists or ears, as if she woke and came immediately here. Ube jabs fingers at her, yelling to make his point.
“Idon’tlike it,” Erla taps her foot. “It’snotsmart.” She sucks in a breath when she sees me.
“What is it?”
Her brother clears his throat. “We have some disagreement about amending the procedure. She thinks the rock size is going to be a problem.”
Her foot taps faster.
“But the larger the item absorbing the magic, the quicker the rate at which we can siphon magic into it.”
“I need a break.” Erla storms toward the exit.
I step into her path. “Show me. Run a trial right now.”
“Am I late?” Yani strolls past me, brushing my shoulder as she enters the room.
Ube fidgets, rolling the large rock to the center of the table. “Yaniselle, stream some toushana to the boulder when I say.” He grabs a tool with jagged teeth. He sets it on the rock. “Now.”
Erla crosses the room, far from us, watching with her arms folded across her chest.
The claw clamps down on the rock, snapping it in half. Black streams from Yani’s fingers to the metal contraption, sliding along its razored teeth and inside gashes in the rock. Black spreads like an ink stain over its surface.
“More,” I tell Yani.
The rock cracks once. Then it explodes.
Yani’s toushana gushes as stone flies in every direction. Erla squeals. Ube groans. Cold slithers over my spine.
Useless.
Waste of space.
I shake my head, trying to mute the whispers. But toushana fills my fists.
“This is all you have to show forthreedays of running this process?” I say. “There’s no time for mistakes like this!”
Ube stares at the floor. Erla’s chest rises and falls like a hummingbird’s wings. Yani glances between them, holding a scratch on her arm.
“Did you know this would happen?” I ask Erla.
