Page 51 of Sonnets and Serpents
“Do you believe crying is wrong?”
“No.” Eliza sighed. She pulled the pillow to her chest and wrapped her arms around it. “Just ... crying when I have nothing to ... to cry about.”
“Define ‘nothing,’” he said.
She groaned. “You’re awful. I can’t put this into words! I can’t ... I ...” But when she looked up at him and found him watching her with dark, steady eyes, the angle of his cheekbone highlighted in moonlight, the words just spilled out. “I was cursed by a Fluid Caster, and after it was broken, I thought I’d be normal again. Thought I’d bemyselfagain. But everything’s felt different since. Like I’m myself, but I’m some ... slanted version. Like sometimes I’m the best version of myself, and other times, I’m the worst. But I don’t get to choose which one I’ll be.”
No, that wasn’t quite right. If she was really the best version of herself, she wouldn’t make the mistakes she did. She wouldn’t chase every reckless impulse without realizing just how reckless it was. Running away from home. Spending all her money on magic she didn’t understand.
She swallowed hard. “It’s like ... it’s like I’m captaining a ship through a storm, all by myself. I’m managing the helm and the rigging and the sails, all at once, and sometimes I’mawedby howwellI’m doing. I know my course couldn’t possibly be wrong. Then ... then there’s a lightning flash, and I can see clearly, and Irealize—I don’t evenhavea ship! Or my ship’s already been destroyed, and all I have is this wreckage, floating all around, and I’m swimming desperately; I’m grabbing pieces to drag and hold it all together. And the worst part is, I realize therewereother people—people all around me—and while I’m flailing, trying to control what’s already sinking, I’m hurting them. I’m drowning them.”
“In this scenario, you’re drowning me?” Silas asked, and she could practically hear his smirk.
Absently, Eliza rubbed the bracelet on her wrist. She muttered, “Maybe. The point is—”
“The point is there’s still nothing wrong with you.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’m an advocate of facts. Look.” Silas slid off the edge of the bed and crouched in front of her, holding her gaze even when she shifted. “Stone Casting applied to a person uses bones, the way this Cast of ours connects to a jawbone and a wrist bone. Bones are a solid anchor, hard to alter unless you break one, and even if you do, healing is straightforward. Fluid Casting applied to a person usesblood, and blood, as you might expect, is a much morefluidanchor. It’s easy to alter, and it’s easy to break in a way without straightforward healing. After you’ve suffereda blood curse, it’s natural to see side effects. Sometimes severe ones.”
Natural, he said. Something about that brought tears back to Eliza’s eyes. It didn’t make sense; he was still saying she was broken. Somethinginsideher was broken.
But he didn’t seem to think it was her fault.
“I know a little about your curse,” he went on. “At least, the little I picked up while talking to your sister. It was meant toendthe king’s line. A curse Cast with the intention of rewriting an entire country into something new. The fact that you outlived such powerful magic says something about you, and it isn’t in the direction of weeds that need pulling. Quite the opposite. It says something about your stubbornness, your willpower, your passion for life, and your reckless disregard for any obstacle in your way.”
He smiled hesitantly, tilting his head in a way that cast shadows from his unruly bangs across the bridge of his nose. “Apta.”
Reckless girl. For the first time, Eliza found she liked the moniker. It sounded like a compliment.
“Tomorrow, we can go to the library,” Silas said, his voice gaining enthusiasm. It almost made her laugh with what aSilassolution that was. “I’ll show you the compilations from Nikolai Sidorov and Ahmet Khatib on their Fluid Casting research as it relates to lasting effects from blood curses. It’s fascinating.”
“I’ll prepare to be fascinated,” Eliza said dryly.
He had the self-awareness to chuckle, and he held his hands up. After a moment, he spoke again, softer. “I know this isn’t research for you. It’s real. So deal with it in whatever real way you need. Just ... don’t feel like you need to hide. No one should ever have to hide who they are.”
Her throat tightened, but she managed a nod.
“Perhaps the effects will fade in time,” he added, “or perhapsyou’ll just get better at navigating them. You’ll sail more confidently, so to speak. But every life change is overwhelming when it’s fresh. Trust me, I know something about that.” His shoulders tensed, and he hesitated before he said, “The first time I transformed into a snake happened without warning, and it changed everything for me.”
She’d always been told shapeshifters were demonic creatures with no conscience. But the way he described it sounded like he’d been cursed.
Her eyes flickered to his scar. Her first response upon hearing the story behind it had been to think how monstrous a creature Silas must have been for his father to need to kill him. Now she had a sinking feeling that she’d ignorantly switched the roles of man and monster.
Silas cleared his throat, looking away. “The point is, I learned to navigate. So will you.”
“Why don’t you hate me?” Eliza whispered. It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask, but she couldn’t take it back.
Silas’s gaze returned to hers. He raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you hate me?”
Maybe she should have.
She remembered his red eyes, fierce and terrifying, remembered the moment he’d transformed into a venomous snake. But she could also see his eyes now, tender and focused on hers. He looked like a boy a little older than she was, crouching in front of her with his hair shadowing his forehead, his arms resting loosely on his knees. Her eyes darted to the yellow band on his wrist.She’ddone that to him, not the other way around.
In her flailing, she’d pulled someone else under. But maybe she could still do something to fix that.
Eliza swallowed. She hugged the pillow tighter, and she wiped the most recent tears from her cheeks. With her foot, she feltaround on the floor until her toes knocked against the sheathed dagger beside the cushion.
