Page 187 of Taken By Shadows

“There’s no way we could have known it was this.” Kaed said. “Magic being locked away is unheard of. Fae witch magic … To have two things, one inconceivable and one so rare the Corners don’t even speak of it anymore … Imogen. I should have told you.” His jaw tightened as he hung his head. “I just didn’t want to dangle hope in front of you …”

He was so still beside me, but I felt something in him ripple. His magic, it was reaching for me.

“But I … I don’t have anything like your—” I stopped myself. Was Celeste aware of his marks? My own scar was so small. So contained.

“Celeste is the one who healed me—after the witches—she knows.”

My heart clenched as I thought of the pain Kaed must have suffered. And how Celeste had healed every cut, scrape and wound I had and left no trace. How terrible must the damage the fae witches did to Kaed have been for the marks to linger like living anger, inked in black.

My hand cupped his face, and he leaned into it.

“How sentimental. Touching really.” Huxley broke the moment that flowed between Kaed and me.

“How do you know it’s fae witch magic?” I tried to sound confident when I looked at Huxley.

The hum of Kaed’s magic was searching for something inside me I couldn’t feel, even if it couldn’t let loose in the barren air.

Magic. In me. Mine.

“Now would be a good time for you to speak before I have to—”

“Yes, yes. I know. Before you threaten and torture me.” Huxley tried to wave a hand in dismissal, but the bones hung uselessly beside him.

“Speak.” Kaed’s command filled the room.

Huxley somehow managed to sit up in a ragged mess of blood and torn clothes. “I want safe passage out of here. And assurance that this one won’t kill me once I leave.” Huxley darted his eyes to Kaed.

“Or I could cleave the information we need straight from your mind. Cut out your tongue if we don’t need it and the middleman, so to speak.”

Huxley went bone white at Kaed’s words.

Simmering rage heated my skin at having Huxley invade the moment I felt should be mine. My magic. Pressure built behind my eyes as I focused the point of my rage into a blade.

“Fine,” I answered before Kaed did something permanent to him. I didn’t know what cleaving was, but judging by Huxley’s face, it wasn’t pleasant. “Fine. Done. Just tell me what you mean. How do you know it’s witch magic?” I asked again to ensure there was no wilful ignorance on Huxley’s part.

“Imogen, don’t. He’s a liar.” Kaed barely suppressed a snarl. I shook away from the hand he reached for me with.

There was no helping the scoff that tumbled from me. “A little hypocritical coming from you right now.” I jabbed my eyes between Kaed and Celeste. I wasn’t sure the anger that was tearing through me was really for them but I didn’t know how to contain it. “Tell me.” I turned to Huxley, ignoring Kaed in front of me. “All of it. Tell me now.”

Huxley gave another sickly laugh and coughed up a gob of blood. “That will leave a stain,” he said, ignoring my fury and looking at the crimson mark on his tunic, amongst far larger swathes of blood. “Fae witch magic is so much more powerful than fae magic.” He wiped the red from his lips with a gruesome, bloody tongue before letting his eyes fall to Kaed for just a moment. Could he sense his magic too? “It draws from the earth. Not the being. And I could taste it. Like honied wine, in your blood. It was agony to hear it sing to me, to call to me, and not be able to touch it. Who hid your power?” His eyes moved from rabid, frenzied hunger to wistful curiosity. Back and forth. Like I was a puzzle he wanted to play with.

I looked to Kaed, to Celeste, for answers.

“We don’t know who locked your magic, dear.” Celeste’s voice was so gentle, sorrowful with apologies she didn’t owe me. “It’s not something anyone has ever … Until Huxley confirmed you actually had magic we weren’t even sure it was a lock. This is the first I’ve ever seen of something like this.”

My fingers traced the cool, moon-pale scar of my skin and a fever of panic ran through me. If this was the first anyone knew of a lock on magic … would anyone know how to unlock it?

When I looked back at the room, tears had begun to blur my vision.

“I can’t,” I breathed in a rush. This was too much. There was no air in here. I wasn’t really fae. I wasn’t magical. I never had been.

I shoved past the stone door and ran blindly into the darkness beyond.

Wet, gurgling laughs from Huxley echoed around me as I ran.

I don’t know how long I sat amongst the swaying trees, their roots beneath me more solid than any part of my world felt right now. The sun had slipped lower in the sky, and everything was painted in gold around me.

I felt Kaed’s magic before I saw him.