19
ADDIE
We tumbled through the darkness only to land in more darkness. It’d been daytime when we’d jumped into the portal. However, it was clearly night now.
The moment I slid off Maddox’s back and touched ground, my arcana unfurled and reached out. Bodies surrounded us. I inhaled sharply only for my eyes to adjust, revealing headstones all around us.
One by one, wisps of blue light appeared. They flickered near the headstones and wavered in the slight evening breeze. My arcana reached deep and wrapped its greedy hands around the corpses. I could raise them if I wanted to, even after all the power that I’d extended to raise the bone dragon.
There was still so much more power in me just waiting to be used. It was almost enough to rival the killer’s arcana after he pulled on his rosary.
Maddox sat and shook his head. The way he stiffened made me wonder if he was fighting with his wolf again. While the two duked it out, the blue spirit wisps drifted closer and closer, like moths drawn to the light of my power.
I flinched away from them when they brushed too close. The lights were new, perhaps a byproduct of me exploring my power more, so I had no idea what would happen if I touched them. The last thing I wanted to do was absorb some poor soul’s residual energy.
“I don’t like what I’m becoming.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
While Maddox warred with his beast, I dumped everything that had been stewing in me for days.
“No one ever told me what this was. Today was the first time that anyone gave me a name for this.” I opened my hand and felt the cool smoke slither along my palm. The dead in the ground answered hungrily. “I feel like all this power has ever done is hurt people. There’s no good use for it. Raising the dead, pulling their souls out of the afterlife to make perfect zombies, and creating a monster to protect myself feelswrong.Though I tried to help people pass on to an afterlife, it seems that I end up corrupting souls instead.”
I tightened my arms around myself. All I wanted was to shrink until I vanished from the world entirely. So much sat on my shoulders. I was responsible for a lot of pain in this world, even if I’d done my best to be good. It seemed I couldn’t help but harm, and I hated it.
Maddox’s growl turned into a human groan. He fell back and lifted his face towards the dark sky. When he let out a soft sigh, I could hear the relief in it. If he didn’t stop fighting his beast, it could take him over completely.
And that was all my fault.
“The difference between manslaughter and homicide is intention,” Maddox said, finally.
I snorted. “Both are crimes punishable by time behind bars. It’s just a difference in the number of years they give you.”
“You’re right. There’s a penance you have to pay for your mistakes. I think, in this case, that maybe your guilt is enough.”
My jaw dropped. “After what I did to you?”
He lifted a hand. “Hear me out.”
He must have hit his head at some point. There was no way that Maddox of all people would forgive me. This wasn’t the homicide detective that interrogated me back in that small mountain town. This was an imposter. He had to be.
“You’re a changeling,” I said. “You’re a fae in disguise, here to make me waste my time. This isn’t a real landscape. It’s a pocket in the fae realm. That’s why the time changed so much.”
However, I knew that I was wrong. There were real bodies beneath me. The fae realm wouldn’t put so much effort into a mirage. It would feel fragile if I pushed too hard. This was the real world, and the corpses in the ground were real people who had lived real lives.
As badly as I wanted to believe that Maddox had been replaced with a doppelganger, the man before me was the real deal.
“I wouldn’t be a danger to everyone if I gave up,” I said into my knees.
Before I knew it, my back was flat to the ground. Maddox hovered over me. Half his body pressed against mine to pin me in place. A hot rush washed over my skin. Ghostly light filled his eyes, making them inhuman.
“No.”
That was it. That was all he said, but the growl that rumbled in that single word was enough to convey everything he felt.
My heart stuttered in response. When I tried to breathe, his gaze dropped to my parted lips. The way his brow furrowed in disgust confused me.
“I didn’t risk my life and become this monster for you only so you could go and throw it all away,” he said, finally.
That wasn’t what I’d heard in his growl.