Black Magic

Chapter Twenty-Five

I blink. Something—this must be wrong. This doesn't make sense. A sharp pressure pierces my head, chasing away the dreamy fog of the kiss. I blink again, staring at Sixten's face, waiting for some confirmation that what I just heard isn't true, or that I misheard, or that somehow the last ten seconds didn't happen because it doesn't make sense—

But no such confirmation comes. Ice-cold dread grips my heart and I pull back, breath coming quicker. "Wait. Wait." My head is starting to hurt. I tighten my fingers around Sixten's shoulders to steady myself, clamping down on the darkness writhing and clawing in my ribcage. "You—you're married?" Saying it—the word almost gets caught in my throat, sticking like a razor blade, darkness squeezing the air out of my lungs.

Sixten's eyes don't move from mine, still molten silver, cooling with the distance between us. "Yes," he says, and that simple confirmation tears right through my gut. "I am."

Anger—pure desperate rage—surges inside me like a volcanic eruption. I scramble backwards off Sixten's lap, shoving away from him with as much force as I can muster. "What the fuck? You're married?" The dark thing in my chest snarls, pressed against my ribcage, trying to escape—and a wild, uncontrolled part of me wants to let it. I tug my hands through my hair—it's come loose, a wild mess cascading around my shoulders. "This isn't—you aren't—" I'm having trouble breathing, having trouble thinking—I need to scream and fight and hurt—

Sixten stands in one smooth motion and I almost snarl at him, baring my teeth. "I'm sorry," he says, hands up in a gesture of placating surrender. "I never meant for this to happen." His face twists up in a pained grimace. "I should have told you—"

"Why didn't you?" I barely recognize my voice as my own. It's rough and ragged and crackling with anger and energy, the darkness curling around the sound of each word. Magic—dark magic, angry and vicious, calling for blood—wraps around me like a protective barrier. "Did you think it was funny? Stringing along a silly little witch with a crush?"

Sixten's eyes widen. "Of course not—"

"Then what the hell!" My chest hurts, my skin buzzing with flickers of energy. I run my hands back through my hair, glaring up at Sixten, wishing I was taller so I wouldn't feel so insignificant—the darkness is bigger than I am, pushing against me, slipping through the frayed seams. "I trust you with my fucking life and you can't even give me the dignity of getting over you in secret?" Hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I blink them away and jab a finger in Sixten's chest—he flinches, like the contact hurts. "Do you have any idea how often bad shit happens to me? Enough that the curse might as well be true! And then I thought you might actually be something good in my life—" I scoff, turning around and snatching my purse off the couch. Stupid, stupid. Should have known better than to think something would go right for once.

I'm halfway to the door when I hear Sixten make an aborted step in my direction. "Desdemona, please—I'm not asking for forgiveness, but I need you to know—"

Fury rips through my body and it hurts, it hurts it hurtsithurts—I whirl around with a scream of rage and a flash of silver, darkness flowing through my extended arm.

Sixten ducks out of the way, moving absurdly fast—but I can somehow see it, the widening of his eyes, the strands of hair knocked aside from the air rushing by. Then my vision clears, the rage settling back to a low boil in the pit of my stomach. And—my dagger is sticking out of the wall. Wobbling with the force of being thrown but embedded in the dark wood.

Silver eyes meet my own pale violet, and for a moment I'm scared—terrified, confused, my head a fog—and I want nothing more than to ask for Sixten's advice, to discuss the relentless rage corroding the careful safeguards deep in my chest. This isn't—this reaction isn't my own, not entirely, and from the concern in Sixten's eyes he knows it too. But I swallow, and blink, and the fear is consumed. "Stay out of my life," I snarl, my voice cold and cruel.