I asked the question but got no answer. Again, that steel barrier flew up between the information and my vision. This place was also protected by a spell.
But something happened here.
I pressed my hand harder to the stone, desperate to figure it out.
“Carrow!” Mac’s voice was at my ear now, and her hands wrapped around my arms. She pulled me back, yanking hard.
My hand broke contact with the wall, and I stumbled against Mac. Her arms tightened around me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, struggling in her grasp.
“You went into some kind of trance.”
I turned and caught sight of her white face. Seraphia stood next to her, a frown drawing her eyebrows together. “It was strange, Carrow,” said the librarian. “As you neared the building, you seemed to…disappear, almost.”
“And your eyes are glowing again,” Mac said.
Shit. I looked back at the wall. It still pulsed with magic. “I don’t understand. It calls to me, but it’s so dark.”
“Because of Orion’s Heart?” Mac asked.
“I don’t know.”
I looked back at her and frowned. A dark light seemed to surround her. It came from the wall, creeping along the ground and up her legs. Seraphia glowed, too. They were standing close enough that the magic reached them.
“Mac…” I touched her shoulder gently, but she didn’t feel any different. “You’re pale.”
“I—” Her brow creased, and she grimaced, folding over on herself. “I don’t feel well,” she gasped.
“Me, either,” Seraphia said, going to her knees.
Panic flared. “What’s happened?”
“A curse.” Mac straightened, her entire body shaking. “It’s the wall, somehow. I can feel it.”
I looked back. The wall glowed with dark magic, magic that had infected Mac and Seraphia. My heart raced. “How do we fix you?”
“Let’s go to Eve.” Mac looked at me, confusion flickering in her eyes. “Do you not feel bad?”
“Not really, no.” I swallowed hard. Why was I so different?
It wasn’t that I wanted to be cursed, but…
why not me, too?
“You have the faint darkness to you, though.” Seraphia staggered upright. “The curse seems to be hovering around you.”
Maybe it likes me.
It was a terrible thought.
“We need to get you to Eve,” I said.
“We also need to figure out what the hell this is.” Mac pointed to the wall, her voice firmer. “She can’t fix us if we don’t know what the curse is.”
“Have you ever heard of anyone being cursed by a wall?” Even the words sounded insane.
“No.” Mac shook her head. “But objects can hold curses, and this is a particularly big object.”