Page 44 of Wretched Thorns

He looked up at Marcus. Then back at me. Then at Marcus again.

“You’re sure she’s it,” he said. “Basile said you claimed the talent was older than you had realized. I’m not seeing older. I’m seeing—”

“Don’t.”

Marcus snapped the word out before he could stop himself.

Evil One looked at him.

He understood the tone immediately. The kind of understanding that only comes from surviving men capable of terrible things.

The decision happened behind his eyes in less than a second.

He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

He went back to chalking.

The mistake was small.

Small enough most people would’ve missed it.

Marcus looked at me, and I let my face go still.

You don’t get to know what you just gave me.

But I held it now — the warm, hidden weight of it — like a coin tucked into my pocket.

A name I was never supposed to hear.

Basile.

Whoever that was, he was someone Marcus was afraid of.

Or perhaps he didn't want me to know I was strong. No, powerful. I didn't understand my talent yet, but I was going to.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

***

Evil One began to chant.

That was the wrong word. It wasn’t chanting. It was a low, rolling sound through his teeth, the sound you make when you’re about to throw up and trying not to. The candles at the four points dimmed, which is something candles aren’t supposed to do, and the water in the copper basin climbed the inside of the bowl in a slow spiral that didn’t care about gravity.

The shadows in my hands stopped pretending.

They lifted. Not at my call. They lifted on their own, the way the hair on a dog’s back lifts when something walks past the door.

Easy, I said. Easy.

The shadows didn’t listen.

The Evil One’s voice rose.

The water in the basin reached the rim and stopped, hanging there, defying the bowl. The smell in the room had gone from dead mouse-in-a-feed bin to something worse. The chord in my chest screamed.

I don’t have a better word. Scream. All three threads at once. A sound that wasn’t a sound. The onyx thread held a long, low note; the silver thread laid wire-tight over it, and the gold thread—

The gold thread came up out of my chest like a struck match.