I assumed he would be asleep. I assumed he wouldn’t know I was here until I was standing over him. Until I was snapping these cuffs over his wrists.
They’re the ones Secora has worn her entire life. I used Mama’s grimoire and ingredients to remove them, along with the two silver pairs. Secora tried to resist. She warned I could be imprisoned for life. I didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t care. That her safety meant so much more than mine.
She’d eventually allowed it. She let me remove the cuffs and replace them with a defunct pair from Mama’s office. For the first time in her life, she has magic.
In a matter of minutes, Harrison won’t.
“I’m making some boar,” he says. I look up from his knife, and he grins. “Late night treat. There’s plenty, if you want some.”
I might believe him, if I didn’t have the cuffs hanging at my side.There’s no way he hasn’t noticed them. There’s no way he thinks this is a friendly visit.
My mouth is dry. It’s been nearly a minute since he said my name, and I’ve yet to speak a word. I can’t. I can’t think about anything except his hands on her body. His hand on her neck when she tried to run. His cock forced between her legs, tearing her deep enough she needed stitches.
Magic pulses through me. It’s sparking from my fingers, through my toes. I’ve never been more acutely aware of my power than I am right now. I could kill him, I realize. Forget the town square. Forget the world knowing his empty heart. I could end this right now, before he so much as thinks of inflicting more pain.
“Elliot,” he says. He speaks slowly, like I am a dangerous animal.
And maybe I am.
Maybe, I just didn’t realize it until he stripped away logic. No, until he hurt the one person logic doesn’t apply to. Secora Reed has been mine from the moment I saw her all those years ago. She has been mine in every breath, every tortuous, hard-earned smile.
“Why?” the words tear from me. “How could you… She…”
I can’t make the words string together, can’t make my rage make sense. A flicker of fear and recognition cross his eyes. My rage pulses through my entire body as I realize…he thought he got away with it. The council excused him, and so he thought there would be no consequence.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he says. “I know you liked her.”
He knew I loved her. I’d told him a day earlier, after he’d made a snide comment. I’d told him I loved her. That I was going to marry her. That if he had a problem with her,hewould be the one I cut out, not her.
He hurt her to punish me, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.
I clench my fists, loosen, clench. There’s more magic pooling beneath my skin than I’ve ever felt, than I know what to do with. I try to control my breaths, because if I act now, I might just kill us both.
“I’d gone to talk to her, to apologize,” he says. “Truly. We got to talking, and I realized you were right. She’s really cool. One thing led to another. She came onto me, man. That doesn’t make it right, but?—”
I throw him before he finishes the sentence. He flies down the hallway and crashes against the far wall. He collapses in a heap on the floor, and a hanging portrait of his mother crashes on top of him. Between us, his knife lays on the floor, reflecting the hall’s dim light.
Harrison gapes up at me, staring at me like I’m a stranger. As if I have done something unforgivable. As if I am the one who betrayed him.
The irony of it is too much. I let out something between a laugh and a scream that has Harrison scrambling to his feet.
“Secora wouldn’t touch you if you begged!” I scream. My voice echoes around us, filling this small, dusty house of secrets and lies. His mother reads magic as a living.
I wonder if he inherited any of her skills.
I wonder if he realizes just how powerful I am. Just how much darkness I carry, now that he’s called for it.
“Elliot—”
“She would have been kind!” I scream. I storm down the hallway, kicking the knife back into the kitchen as I pass. Whatever protection he thought it’d offer, it won’t. “If you apologized for the years of torment, she would have been kind. You wouldn’t have deserved it, but she would have forgiven you, you fucking miserable asshole!”
He cowers against the wall, hands shaking, lifted at his chest. He’s ready to strike, but he doesn’t stand a fucking chance. He’s already lost.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
“She’s a Dark One! She’s evil!” he screams. “She was never supposed to live! Don’t you get that? Everything I’ve done is to protect the people I care about. Margot. Our classmates. You. If it weren’t for those cuffs on her wrists, she would have eviscerated me, Elliot!”
“That’s right! If it was a fair fight, she would have killed you. Andgods, do I wish it’d been a fair fight. I wish you weren’t such a fucking coward, and I wish she’d killed you! Once people know the truth, they’ll wish the same?—”
