Page 43 of Empire of Dark

“Yes, well, I look at it as a gift.” I secured the clamp back around my arm. “And what you have. It is a gift. It sounds like it just hasn’t been used in the right way.”

“No. It’s a curse. Nothing more. What I can do has never done anything but bring pain onto me.”

I didn’t imagine she was over exaggerating. If what Damen had said happened to her actually happened, then yes, her power had been a curse. She had suffered and I couldn’t minimize that.

I nodded. “It’s been horrible, I imagine, what you have been through. But you are older and wiser now, are you not?”

She stared at me, wary, for a long moment before she nodded, a little unsure of her answer.

“Believe me, you are. I can see that. And your power, it may feel like a curse, but you have tomorrow in front of you. And the next day and the next day. And you can change that curse into a gift. A gift that you can control, instead of it controlling you.” My hand went out and touched her shoulder again. She didn’t jerk away. “It takes work, lots of it, but if you learn control, and I know you can do it, you can live a normal life—or at least as normal a life as our kind gets to.”

The hesitancy in her face damn well broke my heart.

She gave the tiniest nod. “I—I would like that.”

“And the reading is just a part of that. We start on easy stuff, and then we move on to harder stuff. Little steps at a time.” I smiled at her. “You in?”

“Yes.” A timid nod. “But my father?—”

“I will talk to him. He won’t stop us.”

She glanced in the direction of the castle, worry clear on her face—like she thought Damen was going to swoop in and steal her away at any moment.

But then she smiled.

A glorious smile that took me aback. I’d only seen sadness in her face. But this, her smile, it was completely enchanting.

“What is your name? You never told me.” Her voice already sounded stronger. More confident.

“Ada.”

“Is that short for something?”

I let out a chuckle. “It is actually, as I was reminded not but a few weeks ago. Maude.”

Her brow wrinkled under her bangs. “Maude? I’ve never heard that name before.”

“No?”

“I kind of like it.”

“You do?” I scoffed. “Then you can use it—you’ll be the only one that calls me that, but for you, I’ll try to answer to it, but no guarantees.”

She beamed. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Sure.”

She lifted her phone to me. “I order things online. They are delivered here.”

I chuckled. I’d left my phone with Triaten—a condition of my stay. “That seems convenient. But how do you do that without reading?”

“Everything has pictures. And I know numbers.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

“I don’t think you’re even the slightest bit an idiot.”

She shrugged, then eyed my clothes. “Why do you always wear yoga pants?”

“It’s the only thing comfortable in the closet of clothes available to me. There are lots of gowns, but not a lot else.”

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