Page 105 of Summoned
I gave her a riddle she couldn’t answer.
After that, the harvest occurred with ease. I stretched out my hand, and shadows rippled around it. The air thickened. Time stalled. And I took her soul. Like an action I’d performed a thousand times. An instinct, etched into my consciousness.
A moment before incineration, theharvestgripped the dagger’s hilt. The same blade she had used to cut herself and summon me. Her fingers tightened around the cold metal, and her eyes drifted, as if revisiting a memory.
When she released her hold on it with her last breath, I reached for it, without knowing why. Did I truly need a weapon in that desolate prison?
“See you in three hundredharvests, Gaetano,” Madeline purred with a thin smile.
Just like that, the spell pulled me back into the castle, along with the harvested soul, the dead body, and the dagger in my hand—the first trophy I would later place on the library shelf. But not before I spent hours spinning it between my fingers, while the silhouette of my firstharvesthovered around me. The dagger contained a small amount of magic inside it. Alas, it couldn’t do anything to help me.
In the years that followed, I wept with bloody tears more than once. I wandered the dark halls, which gradually filled with shadows. I stared for hours at the wall with the crossed-out numbers and the ones still waiting. I dug graves and buried corpses in the soil. The days passed painfully slow, and with each soul taken, my resolve grew stronger.
For Ihadfigured out how to beat Madeline at her own game.
Now, once more standing in front of the wall of crossed-out numbers, I focus on a single one. I could stop listening to the connection between us, respecting Nicole’s wish not to be disturbed until the end of the week. But how am I supposed to endure that long when every second feels like a blade stabbing beneath my ribs?
The unthinkable keeps trying to take root in my mind.
I pray Nicole is safe, maybe with a friend. She’d nevergo back to her father. Even so, I keep hoping she’ll use the dagger I secured around her thigh when I last hugged her—the same one I collected from my first harvest.
For years, I’ve cursed it for its weak spell. It couldn’t do anything greater than my own magic. It never occurred to me that I could amplify its energy to create a small portal. My curse wouldn’t let me use it, but Nicole could. Ihopeshe does.
Harvest 290.
All this time, I believed I’d figured out how to outsmart Madeline. Yet, she’s beaten me again.
35
Nicole
Day 16
The light outside the window has changed at least twice. I run my fingers across the cool surface of the desk. Images flicker in my mind: the castle, the shadows, the numbers…Him.
My heart flips. I slam my fist onto the desk so hard that pain shoots up my arm, shakes my shoulder, and settles in my chest. I’m startled by how good it feels.
Did I really believe he saw me as anything more than Harvest 290? Did I truly think I was a worthy opponent? Someone with even the slightest chance of beating him? I must have been a funny sight to him. A little bunny, leaping on cue, offering herself up like a feast, laid bare and eager to be devoured.
That’s what happens when you let your guard down. You become the prey.
My attention shifts to the door handle that hasn’t moved since yesterday. I crave my father’s hatred; it weighs more than his slaps and is the only thing that brings me any kind of satisfaction. When his gaze pierces through me with contempt, a sense of victory rises within me. His hatred sustains me, filling the hollow spaces Gaetano tore open.
My father’s hatred is like a rope around my neck, but it’s what keeps me standing. And the best part? He doesn’t know his time to despise me is running out. Too bad I won’t be there when he finds out his daughter is gone and the deal with the Deliberovs is off.
As if he heard my thoughts, the lock turns from theoutside. My muscles tense, bracing for another slap.
When the door opens, it’s to reveal my mother. She lingers in the doorway, stealing a glance over her shoulder before focusing on me. “He‘s out right now. Quick! Grab a bag and go to a friend’s place!”
My fingers freeze against the wooden surface of the desk, taking in her appearance. Her hair is loose and messy. She’s not wearing one of her fashionable loungewear sets, but a robe, crookedly cinched at the waist.
“You need to leavenow. Before he comes back,” she says.
I expect to hear my father’s heavy steps behind her.
When I don’t move, she inches closer. “Please, Nicole. I don’t know if he’ll be back soon. He was meeting with an investor, and he’s supposed to stay at the office afterward, but I’m not sure…”
“You want me… to run away?” It doesn’t make sense. My mother is always keen to obey my father. She always takeshisside. Never mine.
