Page 81 of Too Cursed To Kiss
Nine Hells.That flipped my world, but Wald was all that mattered. If my sketchy parental past would save him, great. A notch in my favor. I’d take it. “Okay, so say in theory I could fix the ring, then I’d need to know what pulled the twins apart? I also am assuming you mean Britannia and Caledonia?”
“When Donia died, the ring was in Britannia’s hands. The force of the twins being torn apart damaged it. So to repair it, we need to recreate a binding energy that’s as strong or stronger than twin energy.”
“And that would be?” I pushed my hair off my neck, releasing some dampness. I couldn’t imagine being a twin or losing a twin.
“Hatred, love perhaps? Lust? Or a combination ofthings? Some strong emotion. A want to destroy or create. A deep desire unleashed. You’ll have to dig deep, girl.”
“Me? I can’t fix this thing. You do it. You were going to do it before.”
Agatha shook her head. “I can’t. The crystal has recognized you, making a decision I can’t undo. It seems to want to spend its time with you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, twisting the ring. I licked the side of it, but it was not budging. It tasted metallic but sweet, like fresh blood mixed with powdered sugar. Or was that my skin? I licked a finger, but it tasted normal.
“Perhaps it seeks you as a safe haven, or perhaps it sees you as something to protect. I don’t know. Perhaps you have some bloodline connection to it. Artifacts have their own mind, so they’re complex.” She waved her hand at me, depicting chaos.
“Are you saying it’s sentient?” I never wanted the damn thing off me more. I held up my hand and contemplated a knife. How would I look without a middle finger?
“It’s very old, before time decided what thinking meant. It has its own life force. That’s what needs to heal, and that’s what you have to repair.”
“I think good thoughts, and then it fixes itself? That’s it? Why couldn’t Wald do that, or anyone? I’m not special. Why me and why now?” Heat expanded metal. I wondered if sticking my hand in an oven would work—or maybe soap.
“Perhaps the time is right for it, and it has decided. It had to be repaired in the world that is not yours, with power that you don’t have.”
“Uh, and still don’t have. I get that I need to be here inside the marble, but what about the power then? I don’t have any.” I exhaled, flexing my fingers. Agathawasn’t going to tell me how to get it off, and I still needed Wald back. I was going to have to suck this up.
Agatha looked at me with her luminous brown eyes. “Girl, you don’t know what you are saying. Grief will do that. But you can use that. Believe me, there is power all around. You only have to figure out how to tap into it. You are as special as you believe yourself to be. Now close your eyes and cover the ring with as much of your body as you can, kind of like when you close your fingers around the marble. Touch it on all sides.”
I stared down at the cracked red stone. “And then what?”
“Dream of your most passionate thoughts, good or bad. The ones that take you to the edges of sanity. And don’t open your eyes until I tell you to.”
“Why am I trusting you? I don’t even know if you’re really Agatha.”
“Because if you want Wald back and your life back, I’m your only chance, dear heart.”
It was Agatha for sure. I knew it in my gut. “And what’s in it for you?”
“I’ve had a number of experiences in that body which I’m happy to sever. I have some connections I’d like to explore. In a way, you’re helping me to do that.”
This was all on me. “Fuck. Okay. I want to be crystal clear. I need Wald alive and my life back. Those are the only reasons I’m agreeing.” I sucked in a breath and blew it out in awhoosh. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s do this,” I said, covering the ring with my hand and closing my eyes. I had to actually try. All of it. With no help.
I let my mind wander to desires and dreams. What did I really want out of life other than paying the rent on time and eating food with an expiration date less than a year? Kids? Nah, well maybe if I ever found the right guy. Wald’s one-sided smile flashed in my head. Could he even have kids? What about fame? Didn’t need it. Fortune would be marvelous, but I also didn’t need it. Love? Yeah, I wanted to be loved. Who doesn’t? It didn’t matter who, really. Someone to care about me deeply enough for me to know it. To know me intimately. Once, I’d thought that was Gentry. I laughed, opened my eyes.
Agatha scowled at me, lines forming between her perfectly tweezed brows. “Focus, girl. You can’t get what you want if you can’t focus. Think of something that makes you insane: anger, love, it’s all the same. What are you passionate about?”
I sulked for a minute, ready to throw the marble away and forget the whole thing. I glanced at Wald’s still body and closed my eyes, racking my brain for anger-inducing scenarios. Gentry and Britannia flashed as the main images, but I didn’t want to kill them. Really—even the smoke-guy and the agent things. I didn’t like them, and I’d kill them, I guess, if I had to stay alive, but I didn’t have a desire to hunt them down and remove them from existence. Britannia was the closest to someone I’d like to strangle, but even she didn’t bring me to a killing level of passion. Anger wasn’t it.
Wald, where did he fit? What was I willing to do to bring him back? Die? That wouldn’t make sense. I had never thought being willing to die for something you believed in or loved made any sense. I could never be a soldier or a knight. But maybe now? No. I wasn’t willing to die for Wald. But Iwaswilling to risk whatever this was.
If I was honest, I did fricking love him. How and when had that happened? Maybe when he almost died on me the first time in the warehouse. Maybe I’d loved him when he’d jumped out the window with me, or when he said we couldn’t have sex until we had time to do it right. I don’tknow the exact moment, but it’d happened. No one had ever cared enough about me to want to keep me alive, keep me safe. I didn’t need to be saved, but I wanted someone who would save me if I needed saving. Someone who had my back. I needed Wald to be not dead. That was going to have to be enough to heal this damned rock.
Iconcentrated on the sadness of losing Wald forever. I don’t deal well with death. I prefer not to deal with it at all, or at least that had been my position up until now. Death was an excellent opportunity to use the block-it-out-and-move-on skills I’d honed over the years. My childhood was mostly memories of my grandmother, who’d been my oasis of sanity until she’d died and left us when I was ten. That was the home I’d lost and never gotten back. With Mom in prison, I’d lived with my aunt until I was eighteen, then she’d kicked the bucket, leaving me to deal with bill collectors, her deadbeat ex-husband, and the piece of shit car. The car had ended up to be the positive bonus.
Wald’s passing hadn’t really settled in as real, partly because I fully expected this to work, for me to get him back, and partly because I hadn’t accepted the loss of him. I hadn’t had time or space to grieve for him. My eyes fluttered wanting to open.
“That’s not working,” Agatha whispered. “Think of something else.”
I focused on how I’d felt before Wald died. We hadn’t had a moment since the hotel room. The black bra with the pink bow, the ruined dress I still wore which he’d picked out for me.
