Page 179 of Children of Blood and Bone

“Did you find a Healer?” he asks.

I shrug. Yes. I’m healed. Here in our dreamscape, the world’s hatred isn’t carved into my back. I can pretend my magic still flows through my veins. I don’t struggle to speak. To feel. Tobreathe.

“I…”

In that instant I see a face that cuts like another scar in my back.

Since the day I met Inan, I’ve seen so much in his amber eyes. Hatred, fear. Remorse. I’ve seen everything.Everything.

But never this.

Never pity.

No.Fury grips me. I won’t let Saran take this, too. I want the eyes that stared at me like I was the only girl in Orïsha. The eyes that told me we could change the world. Not the eyes that see I’m broken.

That I’ll never be whole again.

“Zél—”

He stops when I pull his face to mine. With his touch, I can push away the pain. With his kiss, I can be the girl from the festival.

The girl who doesn’t haveMAGGOTetched into her back.

I pull away. Inan’s eyes stay closed like they did after our first kiss. Except this time he winces.

As if our kiss causes him pain.

Though our lips touch, the embrace isn’t the same. He doesn’t runhis fingers through my hair, graze my lip with his thumb. His hands hang in the air, afraid to move, to feel.

“You can touch me,” I whisper, fighting to keep my voice from cracking.

The lines in his forehead crease. “Zél, you don’t want this.”

I pull his lips to mine again and he breathes in, muscles softening under my kiss. When we pull apart, I press my forehead to his nose. “You don’t know what I want.”

His eyes flutter open, and this time there’s a glimmer of the look I crave. I see the boy who wants to take me back to his tent, the gaze that lets me pretend we could be okay.

His fingers brush against my lips and I close my eyes, testing his restraint. His knuckles graze my chin and—

—Saran’s grip jerks my chin back to his face with violent force. My whole body flinches. The calm in his eyes explodes with rage as my breath withers in my throat. It takes everything in me not to cry out, to swallow my terror as his nails draw blood from my skin.

“You would do well to answer me, child—”

“Zél?”

My nails dig into Inan’s neck. I need the grip to stop my hands from shaking; I need it to keep from crying out.

“Zél, what’s wrong?”

Concern creeps back into his voice like a spider crawling across the grass. The look I need is falling apart.

Just.

Like.

Me.

“Zél—”

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