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“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
I couldn’t look up, my vision blurred as the lingering numbness began to vanish.
“How did you break Gloria’s curse?” he prodded after I made no move to respond. That got my attention—I’d been expecting questions of different nature. His mouth was drawn and his forehead was wrinkled.
“I’d been trying to break it for fiftyyears.” Uncle Gregory sounded genuinely frustrated. “Caleb and even the witches too. Furthermore, and I’m not trying to be mean, but you’re still untrained. It must have been difficult for you to do it.”
Difficult?
Was it though? Once I figured it out, everything was rather simple.
I shook my head, glancing back to my slowly melting food.
In fact, truth be told, breaking Gloria’s spell had been easy and was, by far, one of the least-stressful aspects of our adventure.
But, still, I couldn’t answer. Why couldn’t I tell him?
“Bianca?” Uncle Gregory was being so patient—much more than I’d imagined he was capable. “Are you able to answer?”
Tears filled my eyes, and I shook my head.
“Can you sayanything?”
My throat closed as my lingering fear began to swell.
No. No, I couldn’t.
“It’s okay,” he continued, voice calm. “We don’t need to worry about Gloria right now.”
No!
I looked up, finally meeting his eyes as a sense of determination replaced my fear. He’d been waitingfifty yearsfor an answer. There was absolutelynoreason why I couldn’t just explain this simple thing.
He bought me ice cream! This was the least I could do.
But even though I’d opened my mouth, I couldn’t answer. My hands began to shake in frustration, and I barely noticed as Dr. Kohler stepped between us and took away the bowl.
“I said it’s fine.” Dr. Stephens was frowning at me.
I shook my head. It wasn’t fine! I could do this.
“Bianca—” His features were stern and his voice more commanding. “—there is absolutely no reason to stress about this. We can move on to other—”
I gripped at Julian’s arm, trying to ignore the waves of tension radiating from him, and pointed at the necromancer.
“Mr. Kohler?” Uncle Gregory’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand. He wasn’t there. What does he have to do with—”
I pushed back from Julian, facing him. He was staring at me, eyes wide in horror, but I ignored him. Instead, I crawled over his legs until I straddled him and grabbed his arm, holding it out until I saw the mark near his elbow.
I pointed at it, looking to Uncle Gregory. Was I making any sense? He glanced at Julian’s mark, his brows drawing together in thought.
“Necromancy?” he asked.
I nodded, my heart racing.
“Youused necromancy?” He didn’t seem to be as surprised, but there was a thread of doubt in his question. His reasoning was clarified when he added, “How can a necromancer break a witch’s curse?”
I bit my lip, sitting back on my butt, as I tried to figure out how to explain. But really, I wasn’t the expert here.
