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“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
The paperweight shattered in my shadow’s hand and pain shot through my right palm as glass rained on the floor. “What did you do to me? Why can’t I remember them?”
Viktor’s eyebrow rose as he took in the broken paperweight. “Who?”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” she snarled, lifting her bleeding hand into the air.
“Rebekah, you need to calm down,” he warned, holding up his index finger.
The blood dripping from my palm curled off my skin and floated in the air, congealing into glittering red pearls. “Tell me what you did, Viktor. Tell me why. Why did you take them from me?”
“Rebekah, are you really going to use blood magic against me? Your own flesh and—”
Another wave of energy pulsed through my chest and the blood pearls shot towards him in the blink of an eye. The power struck his chest, and Viktor flew back through the wall, cracking the sheet rock and dropping into the kitchen.
“You took everything from me!” My shadow screamed so loud, the echo made my throat raw. She swiped her hand sideways and Viktor’s limp form crashed into another wall in the other room.
Rebekah, is this really something you want to remember?Matteo asked, his presence dancing across my shoulders again.
I have to see it, I said.I didn’t want to watch, but I had to know.
My shadow stepped through the hole Viktor’s body had left in the wall and the memory jumped again to her walking through the debris of the living room. My uncle lay groaning in the remains of a curio cabinet.
Red sparks leapt from her fingers, mixing with the blood, and she snagged a set of red strings from the air. Her wrist jerked towards her chest, and Viktor cried out in pain, writhing on the floor.
“Tell me why!” she demanded, shouting over his screams.
His back bowed and he howled, “To protect you!”
“From what?” My shadow’s hand jerked the strings up to her chin and Viktor lifted like a macabre broken puppet into the air. “What could possibly make you—”
“Look at yourself,” he grunted. “Look at what you’re doing, Rebekah. And tell me why.”
My shadow growled in frustration and my heart started to race. “Tell me!”
Viktor’s eyes flashed blue, and he murmured a single word. “Dormir.”
I knew the spell. I’d tried to use it on myself in the past. Sleep. It was so simple, but it never worked for me. For him, my shadow’s body seized, and the red strings vanished from her hands. Viktor’s body dropped, and my knees wobbled.
The fog of Matteo’s spell rolled back in, and my shadow fell onto her hands and knees, collapsing until she lay prone on the floor.
What’s happening?I asked, squinting at Viktor in the distance.
Matteo’s presence tingled along my neck.Your memory is fading, his spell is putting your past self to sleep.
No, I need to see what happened. I need to know how he—
Viktor’s voice carried abruptly through the fog. “What the hell? You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. How did you find me?”
My field of vision was so filled with smoke all I could see was my shadow on the ground. I couldn’t turn my head. I couldn’t look away from her. My eyelids felt heavy, but just before they closed, a black gloved hand reached down and tucked a stray hair behind my shadow’s ear.
“Rest, Rebekah. Your time will come,” a strange voice whispered, and the fog slammed me in the chest. Matteo’s magic ripped its way back out of my skull like a knife peeling skin from my bones. A shard of ice lodged itself in my throat and I opened my eyes back inside his shop, gasping for air.
“Well?” He tilted his head to the side. “Did you see what the card had to offer?”
I blinked at him, pressing a hand to my chest. “Holy shit.”
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