Page 46 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“You wish,” Azaire laughs.
I drag my fingers across my lips, like a zipper.
“So, what do you think, Estridon?”
“I think free will scares me,” I say, the words slipping past me. Yet I’m glad to speak them aloud. To finally share my mind and be the expressive Little Thorn I was born to be. “I prefer it to be some weird, grand design or a total accident, rather than thinking that I orchestrated it.”
“Yeah,” Azaire whispers. “I understand.”
?
Calista is awake—I can feel her. I sit on the couch in the common area, allowing the fullness of her emotion in.
To be sure I’m there in the event she can strip the glamour.
But Calista doesn’t seem to have made any progress.
The boy in my mind asking me to make him human reminds me of Calista asking me to steal her love for Lilac. On the surface, they sound like things that shouldn’t be done. But with the boy—how could I hurt him if he is simply me?
How could he hurt me?
It could be my best hope of true companionship.
“We can take it slow. Start with something small.”
I don’t like how tempting his offer is, but still, I say,“I’ll think on it.”
I rise, knocking on Calista’s door frame. She sits huddled in the corner, the book sprawled open on her bed.
“I can’t do it,” she sighs. “I can never do anything right.”
If it were a year ago, I would sit with her. Try to console her. She might not want me near her anymore, though.
I keep my distance.
“You’re too far in your head,” I say. “You can’t think your way through magic. You have to feel it—”
“I don’t need lessons fromyou!”Calista shouts.
I think of sitting. Staying and helping. But I feel people drawing near. Injured and worried, on the hunt for something.
Lucian.
Instead of staying, I escape to my room. Minutes later, a knock sounds on my door. Pain is on the other side of it.
How many times will he come to me, on the verge of death?
I open the door, and my eyes immediately fall on Lucian. He feels… like a corpse. As if a dead body is rotting inside of him. I stare at him, searching for that reeking emotion.
He looks all but normal.
“What happened to you?” I ask, barely audible.
Lucian clears his throat, stuttering as he says, “Desdemona needs your help.”
My gaze shifts to the girl in his arms. I’d hardly felt her through Lucian’s torment. Shaking my head, I try to understand what happened to him. But instead, the pain from Desdemona’s broken body slowly takes over.
The pain is in my shoulder, but also not. It seems further than that, like fire in my bloodstream.
