Again, Emrys shakes his head.
“What’s the difference?” I ask suddenly. “Between those all of these…spells?” I guess.
“Yes. Spells. And it’s a good question.” Emrys leans back in his seat, as if glad to have something more neutral to talk about. “A spell’s any sort of magical effect, of any valence, strength, or duration, that’s made manifest by specific actions—a catchall term, you might say. Wards are binding magic to, as I mentioned, protect a given place—those may be active or dormant, depending. Hexes are small, irksome spells that dog one person in particular, but only for a short while. Unfortunate, but impermanent. But curses…curses are much more. They cling to a person—to a bloodline, even. Like…like…” He frowns, searching.
“Like they’re genetic?” I offer, and too late, realize what I’ve said, said in front of Kingston. Someone who has a geneticdisorder, who is both the person he is and an orphan because of what runs in his blood.
But if he hears me, if he notices, he doesn’t show it.
Emrys, for his part, nods. “Yes, mostly, save that a curse may be broken. Must beableto be broken, in fact—equipped with a sort of failsafe in the binding of the curse itself. They are…” He waves his fingers through the air, again casting about for the right words. “Riddle-like, in that sense. Poetic. Precisely why they are so difficult to craft correctly—takes a devilishly clever mind to work out the puzzle-box of it all, on top of all the magical skill needed to execute. But”—he lifts his palms—“I digress. This is no curse.”
Again, the wind howls. I shiver. Even two sweaters feels insufficient.
“Then what is it?” Kingston’s words are terse. “What’s going on?”
“I fear I can only guess,” Emrys says. “But I suspect my guess and yours may be the same.”
Kingston’s silent a long moment. “I just said I don’t know. I don’t have a guess.”
I scoff out loud before I can stop myself. Kingston frowns. “What?”
“Come on,” I say, and my voice is trembling when I speak. “You do. Of course you do. You’re not stupid, Kingston. You’re just…in denial.”
His face stays blank. So I suck in a breath, clasp my hands tightly in my lap, and look at Emrys.
“It’s me, isn’t it?”
Both men look up at me. Emrys with warmth, sadness, a kind of resigned pride. Kingston with concern—no, panic, almost. Desperation.
“It’s me,” I say again, no question this time. “The Spring Maiden, the Grail, theviriditas, whatever it is I’m supposedto have. Or be. I don’t have it, I’m not it, it isn’t here, and everything is dying.”
There. The thoughts I’ve been holding in my head and my heart for the past however many hours and hours of darkness have poured out of me,rushedout of me, so hard and fast I feel like I’m going to choke.
“It has to be me,” I finish. “Doesn’t it?”
Nothing.
“Doesn’t it?”
I’m shouting.
“No,” Kingston says sharply. “No. I won’t let it?—”
“Won’tletit?” I cry. “It’s notupto you, Kingston. It’s up to—I don’t know, God, or nature, or the universe. If Moroslav had just killed me in that church?—”
“Which hedidn’t,” Kingston interrupts, and doesn’t apologize for once. “Because I won’t—we won’t?—”
He stops, suddenly, mid-sentence. Moves his mouth, but says nothing. His golden-brown eyes go wide, panicked, and he looks at Emrys, at me…
What’s wrong?I ask.
No, try to ask. Because I can’t speak either.
Click.
Emrys snaps his fingers. Kingston gasps, and so do I, my throat uncomfortably warm like I’ve just gulped a scalding cup of tea.
“Apologies,” Emrys says. “But I had to intervene.”
