Page 160 of Lifebound

“And then people just…people did what people do. And I could never show anyone. It only happened after the nightmares when I woke up in the middle of the night, screaming.” Like I had that day at the guesthaven.

Like Ihadn’tanymore since.

Which was a little odd, I thought, because I’d had more traumatic experiences here than in the rest of my life, yet I’d slept soundly. Because I’d slept with Rune.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know that it was real until here. I thought I-I-I just made it all up.” I hated that I was stuttering, but so far I hadn’t started sobbing so I would take that as a win.

Rune kissed my forehead and kept his lips there for a long time as he held me. And my mind wasn’t as chaotic as I thought it would be by now at all.

I’d seen mermaids. I’d done the levitating thingon purpose.Yes, the memories were all vivid, but I was here still, wasn’t I? I’d survived all of that.

“So, you could never do it when you tried before?” Rune eventually asked as the slow wind picked up against my back, and the little bird continued to fly steadily despite it.

“Never. I tried for three hours straight once to show Betty.” She was possibly the only person after Mom who actually believed me, even though she never saw it.

“But you did it in the cavern,” Rune said in wonder.

“Well, I wasn’t going to let you die.” I closed my eyes, the feeling still there, that all-consuming fear that had gripped me by the throat when I realized that place might actually beitfor him. “I think I did it in the forest, too. At the Enclave, when you threw me away. I think my hands lit up, but then Raja came and took over.”

“Good, good,” Rune said, raising his head to look at me. “It’s important that nobody knows about this until the prince is awake, Wildcat. Do you understand? No matter what happens,nobodyfinds out about it, okay?”

He actually looked afraid.

“It’s fine, Rune. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“And if word gets out from the mermaids, you deny it. You say thatIdid it, that it was all illusion magic.”

I shook my head. “Why, though? I doubt anybody here is going to care about me making things float on air—everybody’s full of magic around here.”

“You pulled the mermaids out of water, Wildcat,” Rune whispered. “You pulledmeout of the water. A lot of fish, too.”

“What? No, I didn’t. I-I-I…” The memory of that mermaid floating in the air while the others tried to pull her down underneath the surface took over my mind instantly.

Holy fuck…

“That was raw fae magic, undiluted, unfocused.”

“Wait, wait—what does that mean exactly?” I leaned back a bit to see him better. “What does that mean, Rune?”

“It means that wasa lotof very powerful magic,” he said, and the way he was looking at me just now made my heart pound. Like he wassuspicious.

“But you don’t know that. I just make things rise in the air—that’snothingcompared to your shadows!”

“No, Wildcat. That was far more than my shadows. You turned the tempest crystals red. The most intense color I’d ever seen them become is a bright pink when they’re activated—never red.”

Red.

The red pool. All those dead fish just popping up on the surface.

Double fuck.

“But…but what does that mean? What’s wrong with me?”

His hand was on my face. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Nilah. Not a single hair in your head iswrong.You’re as right as right gets, and this only means that whatever Lyall did when he healed you that day, it transferred magic to you as well. Somehow, he must have given you a part of his or something, and it doesn’t have to be anythingbad. It doesn’t have to.”

His eyes closed and his teeth clenched, and my stomach fell.

“But?” Because it sounded a lot like there was abutat the end there.

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