The Devil Doesn't Bargain (MatD part 2)

Chapter THIRTY SIX - Guilt, Blood and Promises

If yearning is simply what the heart does when it wants something and craving is a rather debilitating sort of hunger, than my heart was craving the darkness within and that was enough to curl guilt around my throat and haul nausea from its depths. 

My body on the other hand felt near nothing - a shell, a pompous exterior to a rotting soul - numb in its entirety. The pain had settled back in familiar solidarity and I'd been left to the bones of my body as they'd been before.

Even after Sebastian had been able to force the words out in splinters, to confirm our fears,

Obscurus

Obscurial

even after his words had chunked themselves into stones within his empty stomach and he'd heaved empty retches,

I had felt-

nothing

aside from the tangled guilt and need for more of the very thing he tore me from.

No fear, no pain, no hatred, no sadness.

I was numb.

And he was not.

Our souls a contradictory entanglement.

Sebastian forced his bones to right themselves and his thumb to stroke my wrist. His words tumbled out faster now as if in place of the absent vomit. His sentences more or less complete with each string - thoughts chopped off at ends in favor of starting new ones. My foggy brain fought to follow.

"What happened? Why? I promised you space- I didn't want to smother you like before. I suspected you might- might try to do things on your own... but I hoped I was wrong. I wanted to honor my promise- I even walked down the hall- but then the book. I heard you- I saw... it. Why did it-"

His eyes dipped to my clenched hand, to my whitened knuckles I hadn't felt and only now realized the heat beneath them.

His hands gently pulled it to his chest, fingers working quietly and quickly to release my bones one by one.

The little necklace pulsed faintly, its marbled center a dull, muted red or perhaps a bit more of a pinkish hue.

Sebastian's brows unknit ever so slightly.

"You did it-"

"-No." I bit out the word before he'd even finished his thought, my eyes still stitched to the glow at my palm, still embroidered around the part of me I'd yanked free- nearly snapping my rib cage in the process. "It's only a splinter of the curse."

Sebastian nodded to himself as if the gentle up and down motion would somehow reveal something to him. His eyes pinched shut and he curled his fingers around the little necklace, pulling it from my grasp into his and I noted the gentle lightness that seemed to lift from me. He held the metal to his forehead and kept it there, his other hand finding mine and squeezing me close.

one moment

two

twenty

his lips and whispers repeated something I couldn't quite make out in full, only able to grasp the continuous string of two words. Their syllables daggers in my chest, just below the tingling numbness.

"It's possible. It's possible."

He held tighter as the words repeated, a simple smile dancing the edges of his lips upwards, his deep eyes back on mine and for a moment it was all fine - his hope lighting a simple spark back between my aching lungs.

"It's possible Atley." He smiled and lifted the necklace back into my eyeline but instead I watched the shadows cloud just below his lashes. "This is it. You are capable. We just- we need-  you need to learn more. That's it. Just-"

His hand slipped across my cheek, his fingers gentle over my cold skin.

He took a shaky, little breath in but the smile remained. "Let me come with you and talk to the Keepers."

"What?"

"I can convince them to teach you. I can tell them-"

"-Sebastian no-"

"-Atley... please. I don't trust them, but if your mastery of this ancient magic can save you- you have to let me try. What if you can remove the curse and the Obscurus?"

Something twisted in my gut and I winced at the fear that whipped through me - winced at the thought of never feeling the peace or sense of home I'd just experienced ever again - pain be damned.

I was thankful when Sebastian missed the subtleties in my hesitation and continued on. I watched the frantic way his collarbones pressed against his shirt as the manic soul I knew took over him.

"You can wield it. This is proof." The necklace jingled again ever so slightly as he moved.

My lips felt as if thousands of little needles pressed their sharp edges into my skin. "-but you just said I was- that it- " The numbness dwindled for only a moment as my fear took over. "I don't care what happens to me but I don't want to hurt anyone. I can't control-"

"I won't let it." His frantic words jumbled at the edge of his tongue and his bottom lip trembled faintly. His voice dropped to a whisper though his tone held firm. "I'm not losing you Atley."

Our moments ticked faintly as we sat together in silence and I had almost convinced myself that I could hear our time passing until I remembered Sebastian's pocket watch. Its gentle clicks from somewhere in his clothes a silent reminder of minutes we ought not to have should we do nothing.

"How." I'd meant it as a question but I had no energy left to lift the end of my words and so it sat dull and lifeless on the air between us. I tried again. "How would you convince them?"

Sebastian brushed away a splintered piece of wood from the floor nearest his thigh, it clattered a few paces away.

"I'll show them Anne. I'll show them that you are every bit as capable of wielding your magic and that you were able to save her all on your own."

The entire conversation and situation felt so surreal that if it weren't for the pain in his eyes and the destruction of the room, I would have thought it all a dream. 

My words came out slow, still sluggish in my own body. "So you plan to sway them with direct evidence that I haven't been listening to a damn thing they said to Isidora?"

"Yes!" Sebastian grinned but shook his head quickly. "I mean no. No, well yes, but- but we're going to show them that regardless of their fears, you are stronger than they could have ever imagined. You are worthy of learning it all. Surely they will see that."

I shook my head and my brain seemed to rattle - a dizziness just beneath my skull.

His hands were back on mine, the cold metal a sting to my skin as the necklace pinched between our fingers. "You can't just give up. Do it for Ominis, for Anne." He tipped my chin up so that I could see the pleading ache in his pupils. "Do it for me."

A thousand freckled stars on his skin prayed down to me.

The devil glared back up from me.

I swallowed the nausea that had returned and smothered the fervent craving just below my nails. I bit the inside of my lip, desperate to pull the pain back and feel myself again. A metallic tang filled my mouth.

Guilt and blood thick over my tongue.

"I'm scared." I whispered.

A truth smeared in red, a fear latched to my skin.

I'm scared that I don't want to let it go. I'm scared I'll hurt you in the process. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared.

Sebastian's determination cracked for a split second, his nostrils wide and jaw clenched.

"I am too."

He tucked the little necklace into his pocket and then pulled my hand up to his lips. He kissed my pinky finger with a delicate urgency and brows pulled inwards.

"Just remember all my promises my Atley."

Quieter still he spoke to the ghosts of our former selves wound in invisible string around our smallest fingers. "Aut inveniam viam aut faciam."