Page 35 of Blood Currents
Tonight, though, I couldn’t feel it.The sanctuary’s peace eluded me like smoke through fingers.The air felt too still, too heavy, like the breathless pause between lines in a play when you know the next scene will end in blood.
I should probably get more furniture up here.As it was, I leaned back in the single chair.Marigold sat on the floor, and Cyrus leaned against the desk while Keane slept on the couch.
Wisp curled protectively at Keane’s side.His magic still flickered with oily corruption, but it no longer swallowed him whole.It should have felt like progress—proof that what we were doing mattered.
Instead, every time I looked at him, I heard my own voice from that dinner table.Smooth.Polished.Empty.
I closed my eyes, but the memory clung like grease—Alstone’s smile, my mother’s approval, the words I’d shaped to survive still echoing like applause in an empty theater.
I hadn’t just played my part.I’d played it well.And that was the worst part.
The silence stretched—not peaceful but strained, like a held breath we were too proud to release.I couldn’t bring myself to look at Marigold.Couldn’t bear to see how far away she already felt, even sitting just feet from me.
“He said Parker asked too many questions,” Marigold murmured.
She sat cross-legged near Keane with Scout perched on her shoulder like a skeletal sentinel.She didn’t look at me.Not once.
Cyrus now stood near the window, blue fire coiled loosely in his palm and his expression carved from stone.Always steady.Always present.Always the one who stepped in when I didn’t.
“Could mean she was investigating the conspiracy,” he said, his voice level and sure.“Or feeding them information.”
I watched the way Marigold’s shoulders relaxed slightly when he spoke, the subtle tilt of her head that suggested she was truly listening.
“And she’s somehow connected to the Last Witness,” I said lightly, twisting the rings on my fingers.I hated the nervous habit but couldn’t seem to stop.“Someone with proof.Someone they haven’t found yet.”
The words came out smoothly, effortlessly, like every line I’d been trained to deliver.My tone didn’t betray the way glass seemed lodged in my throat.
I should tell them.About the dinner.About what I’d said.My chest tightened.And about what my mother had done.My gaze flicked involuntarily to Keane.
But admitting it aloud would make it real.
“We’ll need to be careful,” I said instead, flicking the illusion away with a flourish.Polished, charming.As if charm could hide the rot in my chest.“If Parker’s working with them and we approach her wrong—”
“We’re dead,” Cyrus finished, his gaze flicking between Marigold and me.
Marigold’s fingers trembled faintly against her knees, the only outward sign of whatever storm was raging inside her.But she nodded at Cyrus when he spoke, as if he was the one she trusted to anchor her now.
“So we watch her first,” I said.“Learn her routines.Who she meets with.Where she goes when she’s not on patrol.”
“Basic surveillance,” Cyrus agreed, his fire dimming to a steady glow.
“I’ll create observation aids,” I offered, already cataloging the charms in my mind.“Light-bending.Perception filters.Nothing flashy.Just enough to keep you all charmingly unnoticed.”
Marigold finally looked up but not at me.Through me.“How long will it take?”
“A day,” I said, my voice catching slightly before I smoothed it out.“Maybe two.I promise they’ll be flawless, darling.”
She nodded once, brisk and businesslike, and then looked away again.
Leaning forward, I felt myself reaching for her without conscious thought—my hand lifting from my lap, fingers extending toward the place where her shoulder curved beneath her sweater.It was instinctive, the same gesture I’d made a hundred times before when she needed comfort or reassurance.
She saw it coming and flinched away.
Not dramatically.Not with anger or obvious rejection.Just a subtle shift, a gentle turning of her body that put her further from my reach.But it might as well have been a slammed door.
The message was crystal clear:I know what you did.
My hand hung in the air for a heartbeat too long before I forced it back to my side, the movement jerky and graceless.Echo’s scales flashed guilty silver, her chameleon body dimming to almost transparent—betraying the shame I wouldn’t let touch my face.How could she know?How did she find out?
