Page 75 of Cursebreaker

I cut a glance at Titus. His smile falters, but his eyes still glitter with something akin to reverence.

“Batya,” he says with a grand, sweeping gesture at the elderly woman above, as if he were introducing us to royalty, “is the Sorceress who made those adorable bracelets you wear.” He flicks a hesitant glance at my chest, a muscle in his jaw feathering. “The Sorceress who placed the enchantment around your heart.”

Titus and I sit on opposite ends of a lumpy sofa, facing a gaping hearth big enough to fit a cauldron the size of a bathtub, cradling cups of piping hot tea. The quaint, cluttered house smells like dried herbs and pressed oils, bitter and floral.

Batya kneels on the quilted rug in front of the fire, her expression nettled as she inspects the shield, glowing once more as it did in the vault. I touched it, only once, when we first arrived half an hour ago, but it’s been buzzing ever since, as if it wanted to be read—understood.

“It’s old,” Batya hums, peering over the rims of her glasses as she runs her hands over the grooves of the map.

“Brilliant.” Owen lounges comfortably against the wall nearest the hearth, hands behind his head, feet crossed at the ankles, at ease, as if the events of the day bore no consequence to him.

Batya lifts a brow, but a smirk tugs at the corner of her lips. “I’ll need to make a salve.”

“A salve?” Gabriel asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He sits in the chair closest to Batya, watching as she traces the glowing, silver script with her fingers.

She nods. “A salve of enlightenment—to give me the sight.”

“Oh, of course.” Gabriel shoots me a look. “That kind of salve.”

This seems to pique Owen’s interest. He sits up straighter, eyes narrowing. “You can make a salve of enlightenment?”

Batya gets to her feet, wiping her hands on the front of her apron. “I can,” she says, making her way to the kitchen across the hall. “Come, you can watch.”

Owen jumps to his feet, trailing after Batya without hesitation, asking her a dozen questions about sorcery and magic, his muffled voice carrying from the room over.

I glance at Titus, his head tilted back, hardened gaze fixed on the ceiling.

Gabriel clears his throat. “I’m going to supervise.”

Titus says nothing as Gabriel leaves the room. I’m about to stand, too—to see what Batya plans to show Owen—when Titus closes his eyes and releases a low, ragged breath.

“I should have taken it,” Titus says, his voice barely a whisper. “My mother’s painting. I should have found a way to bring it with me.”

I don’t know what to say. It would have been too difficult to take the painting, but that doesn’t change the way he feels.

“I keep thinking…” His throat bobs. “I never really knew my father. Calantha had compelled him for so long—my whole life.” A crease forms between his brows. “But that painting—you know the one on the ceiling in the Queen’s Court—he never let her cover that one up. I don’t know how, or why, but… he fought her on it, and he won. I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like, just before—” He winces, his lips pressed tight in a frown. “In those final moments, he remembered my mother. He was himself again.” His fists clench in his lap. “He asked for forgiveness.”

I’m careful not to shift my weight, not to breathe too loudly. I saw the moment the compulsion lifted—heard what the king said just before Titus slit his throat.

“I remember it all.” A single tear streams down his cheek. He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, his teeth gritted. “Everything Morana made me do. But I couldn’t stop myself.”

I think of the weeks that followed the wedding—the Order members he was forced to execute, the ships he sank at her command. The innocent people he was forced to torture and kill.

“I don’t think it was like that for him,” I say gently. “It seemed to me as if one moment he was with your mother, and the next…”

I turn, closer to him than before, and place my hand over his. His eyes fling wide at the contact, and his body goes rigid.

Something that feels too much like fear spikes through me, my cheeks burning, and I jerk my hand away. I shouldn’t have touched him, I think with a stab of humiliation. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should just go. Leave him alone, like he asked me to do when he was first freed of the compulsion.

But before I can gather the strength to stand, Titus closes the distance between us, his arm stretched across the back of the sofa, his hand lingering near my shoulder.

His gaze seizes mine, and I’m struck by that old familiar feeling that his eyes are like the tide, pulling me out into the deep. And suddenly, all I want is to drown—in his eyes, in his arms, in him.

“Ever since the compulsion,” he says, his face drawn, his voice a tentative whisper, “I don’t know if I can trust my own thoughts—my own feelings. You know what that feels like, don’t you?”

My throat tightens. “I do.”

His knuckles brush my knee as his other hand touches a strand of my hair. The air crackles with electricity, charged. Bright. Dangerous.