Page 28 of A Bond of Ice and Glass
“You feel sick because something in you knows this isn’t right.”
I meet her eyes in the mirror. She pauses for a moment before turning back to untying the clasps on the back of my dress. I still don’t know if I can trust her, but right now, I feel like I might be able to trust her more than I can trust Lochlan.
“What makes you say that?” I whisper.
The candle lit beside me flickers as she steps closer, hands brushing over my shoulders as she pulls the fabric free.
“This magic—yourmagic—was never meant to be used like this. It’s why your bones ache and you’re tired all the time. You’re being twisted, girl.”
My breath hitches. “You don’t know that.”
And yettwistedis exactly how it feels to me.
Like I’m being twisted into a ghost of myself.
Nymala arches a brow but keeps her eyes down. “I know exactly how it feels to have your magic twisted against you.”
She reaches for a comb and begins to brush out my hair with slow, gentle strokes. I stare at the chains on her wrists as she works.
“Sleep tonight, but please do us both a favour and remember what I’m about to say… Not everything Lochlan tells you is the truth, and not every monster wears a collar. Some of them smile at you as they twist the knife.”
I say nothing but don’t stop her hands. If she had said this a few days ago, I would’ve screamed at her thatshe’sthe one who’s got it all twisted. That Lochlan isn’t a monster. He’s the opposite of one.
But now… now I’m not so sure.
When I later close my eyes, for the first time in weeks, I don’t dream of the mysterious man who calls me his mist. I dream of the man I killed, and the gut-wrenching silence that followed.
Chapter 9
NOBLE
Ilean on the brick wall and watch my brother step out of Maelena’s room. I can’t help but wonder when Loch began to change into the man he is now. For most of my life, and the little contact I had with him, I’ve pretended the half-witch side to Loch wasn’t real. We have the same mother, and it’s easy enough to only see my mother in him. He looks like her for the most part, whereas I look like my father. I don’t know who Loch’s father is.
It’s always been a secret my parents kept and took to their graves.
But now when I look at Loch, I see the witch side I’ve tried to forget.
Witches are tricky creatures, and more than once, I’ve wished my brother wasn’t tainted by their stain. Now I’m beginning to see Loch for what he is, and I don’t like it. He’s becoming a liability.
He pauses at the door, tightening his gloves and smoothing his hands down his clothes. For the first time in months, I really look at my half-brother. It hurts to see how much he’s changed for this war.
How much the war has already begun to shape us all—breed us into something darker and unrelatable.
Loch has always been strange, even as a boy, but I assumed he grew out of it while he was away. He didn’t. He’s dived into the strangeness; he might as well be drowning in it. My father called him “the bastard-born waste” anytime Loch was brought up, but I defended him. Even if it cost me a beating. I have always defended Loch, and I bet I will to my grave, but…
These last few weeks have brewed something new in me.
Something I never thought I’d feel about my brother.
Doubt. And doubt can plant the worst kind of seeds in you because they don’t just grow. They fester.
I tilt my head at him, keeping to the shadows. He’s taking this too far. He’s messing with Maelena too much. I’m worried he’s going to break her mind and soul, never mind just her heart, before she can help us.
My father said there were no lines to cross in a war, but my mother taught me that lines of the heart and mind should never be crossed. Loch is using magic—he always has done—to twist the lines over each other. It’s changing him. I don’t know how magic works for the witches, but I’m certain that whatever Loch is using is hurting him.
And it’s hurting Maelena, too. I can’t let that happen.
Hurting her was never part of the plan.
