Page 44 of Too Hexed to Handle

‘I want to know what you and Damian spoke of yesterday.’ She gestures to the tent. ‘After you.’

The threat of what she might do if I refuse has me stepping over the threshold, like a fly being forced into a spider’s web.

The interior stinks of incense, choking in its intensity. Candles are scattered over the floor – which has to be a fire hazard – and in the centre, two stools face opposite sides of a circular table hosting a crystal ball.

I gesture at the table. ‘Are you actually telling fortunes, or is this a front for –’ Distaste leaves me unable to finish the sentence. I can easily imagine her luring unsuspecting victims in here, digging her nails into them the moment they sit at her table, channelling their emotions until they’re stumbling out of her tent in a daze, lucky to have a future left at all.

‘The festival smells nice,’ she says, which isn’t an answer. ‘I’ve been coming since I was a child. I’d sit in a quiet corner and breathe it all in. They try to repulse us with their banners and their powders, but they have no idea the depths of the emotions we experience. Eventually, someone would ask me why my parents weren’t supervising me, if I needed help finding them, and I didn’t know how to answer. Do you have parents?’

‘I – yes?’

‘That’s nice. Must be nice.’ She gains a far-off, dreamy look. ‘Anyway. When I was older, they stopped asking about my parents, but they still questioned why I was alone. Like it was a flaw I was capable of fixing. I didn’t know how to answer that either, so I got the tent. And then I met Damian and I wasn’t alone any more. I’m going to keep him forever.’ Her gaze sharpens. ‘You can’t tell him I was here. He won’t like it.’

‘I have no interest in –’ I break off, realising I can use this to my advantage. I drop on to a stool, and she follows suit. ‘I’ll make you a deal. I won’t tell Damian you’re here . . . sniffing people . . . if you stay away from Astin. And if you do meet, you can’t say anything weird to him. It won’t end well for you if he works out what you are.’

‘Oh. Would he want to hurt me?’ She mock-gasps. ‘He could try. I get my magic from special sources, but I might make an exception for him.’

Jealousy has no business roaring within me, but it does anyway, like the Souleater within decided some time ago that Astin’s emotions – such as they are – belonged to her and her alone. ‘Getting Souleatery isn’t going to win Damian back.’

I regret the words immediately. They won’t help me escape this tent unscathed, but that jealous beast won’t stop wriggling and writhing as it imagines Astin beneath her touch.

‘You speak as if you know us.’ She leans forward. ‘You know nothing.’

‘I know he hates Souleaters because he was hexed by one.’

‘Is that what he told you? Hexes needn’t be vexes. Once you find your loophole, you’ll understand.’

Please. Kissing has no loophole, and as far as Damian’s gloves go, he still seems plenty vexed about those. I wonder though, with her talk of keeping him forever, whether that gift came with a price. If she made the gloves, maybe she could also take them away.

But that’s not a problem I can solve for him, not when I have no magic myself, and it’s certainly not one I want to be delving into when I’m alone in a tent with Eira. ‘Okay. Well. I’ll be going now.’

My wrist is in her grip before I can move, and immediately, every hair on my body stands on end. She’s a Souleater, and she’s touching me. One nail slowly, slowly, presses into my skin, and her grip’s too tight for me to pull free –

She drops my arm suddenly, panting. ‘I mustn’t. It’ll ruin everything. If we return to day zero, he’ll never . . .’ Her eyes regain focus. ‘You still haven’t told me what you and Damian spoke about last night. What do you want with him?’

‘Nothing.’ I try to steady my breaths, my mind racing. I really, really need to get out of this tent. Words tumble from my mouth. ‘I mean, it doesn’t matter. I had some questions about finding the cure and –’

‘Cure?’ The word is blade-sharp. She sits up straight. ‘He’s looking for Ozias’s potion?’

Oops.

She will never risk relinquishing her power . . . She’d kill me the moment she found out I continued looking for it.

Oops, oops, oops.

‘He doesn’t want it for you!’ I rush to soothe her. ‘He wants to remove the powers of the Souleater who hexed him. He thinks they’re too powerful to face otherwise.’

She’s gone very, very pale. Darkness creeps along the edges of the tent, and I grip the table as though I expect a hole to open and drag me into its depths.

‘Eira. I swear to you, he said the cure’s not for you. He loves you.’

The darkness halts.

Okay, maybe he didn’t say that last part out loud, but I’m sure it could be true. They broke up on a technicality.

‘He told you that?’ Her voice wavers. ‘He really said that?’

‘Yes.’ I inject as much conviction into the word as I can. ‘And I’m sure once he’s had his revenge on the Souleater who hurt him, he’ll be more willing to admit it to you. Especially with how well you’re doing. You didn’t hurt me just now, did you?’