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Ah. Perhaps it’s not just my blunder she’s been fleeing.
Not that I can take any comfort in that fact. Her body has somehow become even more rigid where she’s perched on the sofa.
Even with my view of her blurring, I can feel her gaze burning into me with its intentness.
If I don’t handle her admission just right, I’ll prove myself exactly the enemy she’s afraid I am. I don’t know if we’ll be able to come back from another misstep so soon on the heels of the last.
I keep my voice perfectly calm. “I can’t say that surprises me, what with the drugs and the chaos the scourge sorcerers were encouraging. What happened?”
She shifts uneasily on the sofa cushions. When I give my head a twitch to get a clearer glimpse of her, it’s obvious from the distant look that’s come into her eyes that she’s as much uneasy with her recollections as how I’ll react to them.
Which only offers more evidence of why I don’t need to be afraid ofher.
“Everyone was disguised,” she says after a moment. “I knew I needed to figure out who they were, that getting out of this whole dangerous mission depended on identifying the conspirators. So my magic decided it would start wrenching off people’s masks, and it slipped my grasp a couple of times. That’s how I saw Olari and the woman from the dining hall.”
“I’m not hearing anything horrifying so far. We told you that you should use your power if it would work in your favor.”
Her hands twist together in her lap. “But there’s always a backlash. Kosmel wasn’t around to guide it, and I don’t know how. It—it pushed in to balance out the pulling away. One of the scourge sorcerer’s masks seemed tomeltdown her face and into her mouth. They had to break it to stop it from choking her. And my magic hit one of the horses too—something with the bridle hurt it. The woman might have deserved it, but the horse definitely didn’t.”
I consider her account. “Surely it wasn’t a lot of harm for something as simple as removing a mask?”
“With all the magic on the things, I’m not sure removing the masks was ‘simple.’” Ivy sighs. “It didn’t seem as if the horse was outright wounded. But if I hadn’t gotten a handle on my power when I did, I don’t know who or what else it might have hurt.”
“You did get a handle on it, though. Without any permanent damage done.”
“I couldn’t manage it on my own. I was too disoriented. But Julita helped me steady myself and focus.”
Julita. It’s gotten increasingly difficult for me to picture the coy, chestnut-haired woman who cajoled me into taking up her cause residing in Ivy’s head. What hasshebeen saying to Ivy about me?
Is Ivy here right now because of her or in spite of her?
The firmness of her tone suggests her declaration matters to her. And I’m not lying when I say, “I’m glad she was there when you needed her.”
Ivy’s fingers tighten around the edge of the sofa cushion. “She won’t always be, though.”
“And you won’t always be socializing with scourge sorcerers.” I pause, summoning all the conviction I feel into my voice. “Ivy, nothing you’ve just told me changes my opinion. I’m not worried about you or your magic. You went seven years without ever losing your grip on it before you stumbled into this situation, so I don’t see any reason to think your incredible control won’t work just fine once you’re out of this mess.”
“You don’t see any reason so far.”
There. There is the crux of the problem, the catastrophe I created.
She was willing to trust me once after I’d been an ass to her when we first met. And then I let prejudice and fear and—being honest—my own wretched insecurities about one part of who she is overshadow all the rest, and wasn’t just an ass but a brute.
How am I ever going to convince her that I won’t make another about-face on her?
Iknow I won’t. So I’m just going to have to give this appeal my all, no matter how much shame I have to dredge up in the process.
I owe this incredible woman my full truth.
I drop my gaze for a moment, gathering myself. “Ivy… You never deserved anything I put you through. I was wrong, over and over again. There wasneverany reason, not in anything you did, not even in what you are, so now that I’ve sorted myself out, I won’t imagine any more.”
Ivy’s tone is wary. “If it wasn’t anything I am, then what was it about?”
The corner of my mouth crooks up at a wry angle, but my chest constricts around the words. I’ve buried these unsettling emotions so far down, hiding them under layer upon layer of confidence and authority and comradery.
I never wanted to let them out. Maybe I had the fanciful idea they’d rot and disintegrate like a corpse into the earth, but it hasn’t worked. The stifled anguish has been eating away at me from the inside all this time.
“I have fucked up, so badly.Ihurt so many people, so many more than you have, and I was so terrified of making an even worse mistake that I couldn’t see I was fucking up all over again with you.”
