Your charm?
She nodded. “It gave me peace.” She frowned. “It led me to you the other day, too. Whenever that was. Before… before Klas…” She swallowed, looking at me. “How did you survive that spell? It was intense decay magic.” Her brow crumpled. “And how are you awake now?”
The night,I said, glancing at the still dark sky.It’s giving me what little it can… to keep me this way. But your spell is—
“My spell?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. I didn’t do this. I mean. I did. But… but I didn’t.”
I stared at her.You did but you didn’t?
“Yes. It’s my power, but… but I’m not the one using it.” She glanced around, her voice lowering as she whispered, “He is.”
He, as in Klas?I guessed, not fully following her logic.
“Yes,” she repeated. “He drinks my blood and… and uses my magic.” She sounded ashamed, her shoulders slumping as she curled her arms around herself. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”
What is your magic?I asked, ignoring that last part.How are you… I mean, how isheusing it to do this?
“It’s a form of necromancy.” Her tone was low again, like she was afraid someone might overhear us. “Death magic.”
Oh.That… that eerily made sense. It explained the sensations I was feeling, as well as how I’d nearly died.
Her gift was literally the opposite of mine—I created life. She controlled death.
And your mate has been using this gift,I said, thinking through what she’d told me.With what purpose in mind?He was one of Vesperus’s mercenaries, right? Why would he use these powers to hurt Gold and Garnet?
“He wants to destroy—”
The ground began to shake around us, cutting off her explanation and sending her to her knees.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “He’s initiating the next phase.”
The next phase of what?
“Raising the dead,” she said.
I frowned, but as the earth continued to move, I realized what she meant—the bodies in this cemetery.Why?
“To kill them all,” she said, her eyes wide. “I should go.”
No,I snapped, making her freeze.You should help me so I can stop him.
She stared at me. “I can’t do that. If I counter the spell, he’ll feel it.”
So you’re okay with everything he’s doing?I asked, genuinely curious.
“N-no,” she stammered. “But… but he’s my mate.”
I’m not following your logic.
“I can’t… I can’t tell him no. He’s… he’s my other half.” She winced at the words, her eyes blazing with a fire that contradicted her words. “I have to help him.” Her movements were stiff as she started to turn, almost as though part of her wanted to stay while the other half forced her to go.
Wait,I called.Tell me about your charm. Tell me how it gave you peace.
Because something she’d said about it leading her to me told me that charm hadn’t been an ordinary piece of metal.
And the way she halted, like she was battling some sort of need to move versus stay, suggested that there was something else going on here.Something that has to do with her fractured aura, I realized, the words ones I kept to myself. Or I assumed I did, anyway. Because she didn’t react to them.
Instead, she touched her wrist again. “It gave me peace,” she whispered, her back to me. “I… I need to find it.” She went back to her grave, searching for the token I knew she wouldn’t be able to dig up. Because it was gone. And its last request had been for me to find her.
