Page 43 of The Stygian Crown

“Maybe this new one works. I should be keening by now, but I haven’t felt the usual impulses—”

Logan fanned his hand out over her abdomen, and Kara shrunk away from the dull pain.

“It’s hurting you.” Logan’s frown deepened. “It feels wrong. Like the opposite of life. Show me what you took.”

“There’s none left.”

“Do you have the container still?”

“In the armoire.”

Logan dug through it, yanking out several dresses before surfacing with the bag. He uncorked the vial and sniffed it. His lips curled back, eyes gone crimson. A menacing rumble rolled out of his throat. “Mancator magicae.”

“What?”

“Magic eater. Mother night.” His eyes slid closed. “How long ago did you take this?”

Kara quickly counted backwards in her head. “Five days.”

Logan’s eyes swung towards her. “That’s impossible. The amount of magic you’d have to have in your blood— How much of it did you take?”

“Just that vial. Have you tried it before?”

Logan nodded. “They had to cut it out of me before it strangled my heart, but I was on it for months. Yours is spreading way too quickly.”

Kara paled. “Cut it out of you?” she whispered. She glanced down at the mark coating half her abdomen in mute horror.

Logan jerked his head in a nod.

Now really didn’t seem like the best time to disclose that she might be the long-lost granddaughter of the woman responsible for their curse. But if it was true—there was no way it was true—it might be affecting the demon’s drip.

“There’s something else. Calim has this absurd theory that I’m related to Namirah.”

Logan’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“There’s a portrait of her in the library, looks like I sat for the damn thing. I think he’s crocked, of course, but if there’s a chance it’s true…that could be why it spread so fast.”

She relayed everything Calim had told her about Da and the keyed blood rune. Logan started pacing the room again, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Like I said, it’s absurd.”

“We can’t rule out the possibility. If Namirah’s power was passed down, it would explain the rate of growth. We need to talk to the mage who gave you the potion, Kara. Give me their name.”

Kara ignored his demand. “Why would you have to cut it out of me? I thought it just went away on its own.” Surely Salizar would have mentioned that.

“It’s a parasite, Kara. The magic eater works by consuming the magic in your blood, suppressing the onset of your keening and the other strengths of the curse. Magic is an inextricable part of you—it’s essentially feeding off your life force. With a weak enough host injecting them rarely, they die off before they do too much damage. They’re not meant to be borne long-term.”

He glanced down at her stomach. “To have spread this quickly though…it’s like a thirsty man in the desert finding a bottomless jug of fresh, cold water. He’d bloat himself on it.”

Kara blanched.

“And when they grow too large, their instinct is to kill their host so they can find another. They’ll work their way through your bloodstream and wrap around your heart until it stops beating.” Logan clenched his fist in the air for effect. “In the past, they’ve been used to harvest the magic of prisoners. If the magic eater is extracted alive, a mage can use all of the power it siphoned in their own spells.”

She was going to kill Salizar. Had he known about her link to Namirah, too? Or was it a happy accident for him? He’d been in awe when she showed him the mark.

Logan tugged her off the bed and led her to the mirror. He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders. “Watch closely.”

Kara stared at the hollow of her stomach for several long seconds. She was about to look away when one of the dark tendrils writhed slightly and grew longer. Chills skittered over her skin like a thousand tiny insects. Nausea rose in the back of her throat.

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