Page 186 of Taken By Shadows

Another rasping laugh. “I would have taken you sooner. I tried to do this the civil way. You were so alone in the library. So vulnerable.”

Kaed roared and was on top of him, gripping him by his lapels until he was dangling limply above the cot. “You will speak plainly. Now. Stop toying with words, or I will break every pathetic bone in your body and leave you here to rot in the dark.” His voice was like the depths as he bellowed over Huxley.

Celeste didn’t flinch.

But Huxley cowered and no part of me could feel pity for him as he did.

How had he ever gotten the better of me? This snivelling sack of bones. I felt a little ashamed that I hadn’t been more prepared. Denora would be irked to find out my lessons had gone unused.

“Eryk … H-he convinced me to wait. Said he would provide an opportunity for me. For us.” Huxley’s bloody smile fell to me. “But he never said you were different.”

Different.

I had always been different. I knew that.

“Their hearts are thundering. They know something and have been keeping it from you.”

I looked between Celeste and Kaed. “What?” My voice was so small.

Kaed grasped his neck before I’d even finished. Huxley was as pale as a corpse as Kaed’s grip on him tightened.

Celeste didn’t move at all. She didn’t turn to him. Her eyes were on me as her son tried to speak. Kaed loosened his grip but didn’t release him.

“You have fae witch magic in you,” he forced through choking gurgles. “It’s old. Locked away. Hidden and powerful.” His lips curled around the last word as he looked past Kaed to me.

Words and sounds came together until their edges blurred. Huxley had spoken, but I didn’t really hear it. My ears were pounding as my blood thrummed in them, a waterfall of thoughts swimming through me in utter chaos. What did he mean I had witch magic? I’d never had magic. There was nothing there. Not even a trickle. Not even a weak fae light amount.

“How …?” My voice was as dry as paper.

“How should I know how you’ve witch magic in you?” Huxley shrugged, entirely uncaring as to the deluge of information he’d just heaped upon me.

No matter how many times he said it, it still didn’t make sense. Even if I could feel the veracity of it in the air.

Magic. Fae witch magic.

I looked between Kaed and Celeste. “Somebody tell me what’s going on.” I didn’t mean it to, but my voice came out rattled.

Kaed dumped Huxley’s body back down and came to take my face in his hands.

There was blood on his fingers, but I didn’t care. Something in me was vibrating and prying at the cage it was held within, and I needed Kaed’s touch.

“What does he mean, Kaed?” My whole body tried to pull apart, the fabric of my being was being razed like a catastrophic starburst wiping across my known horizon. Something I had wanted all my life and it was there … out of reach and—it couldn’t be there. I shook my head against the stabbing pain of all of this crashing into me.

Kaed’s jaw set as he looked at me, but it was Celeste who spoke.

“We knew—we thought we knew,” she corrected. “You said you had no magic.” I had told Kaed that when I’d met him. Celeste too. It had been my truth and they’d accepted it. “We think that you might have some sort of lock. We just don’t know how that is possible.” Her eyes fell to the faint scar on my wrist. “It’s not something we’ve ever come across. W-we weren’t sure. We couldn’t have been sure …” Seeing Celeste fumble for words unnerved me. Her lips were pinched, and her eyes looked like stained glass; beautiful but fragmented and held together with dark lines.

Kaed’s fingers moved to caress the pale semi-circular mark on my wrist.

“Why … why wouldn’t—How?” I wasn’t sure any questions or answers would help me understand how my insides felt like they were rearranging, like I didn’t recognise all the parts of me.

“Huxley’s magic works by syphoning the power around him,” Celeste said. “He takes from others. He has his own source, but he absorbs other magic. And can sense a well of power.”

I didn’t know where Celeste was going with this, but I knew what she meant. I could sense Kaed’s power when he was about to use it.

“But I have none for him to syphon.” The habit of a lifetime clung to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice rose and it sank into Kaed as I snared his eyes with mine. “You knew … How could you not have said something—anything?”

“We didn’t know,” Celeste said again.