I rock faster.
I can save them...
HER RAGE RADIATES OFF HER in waves. She shoves my head from her lap, and my skull cracks against the stone. The pain splits behind my eyes, and a shrill ringing floods my ears.
When my vision clears, she is towering over me.
“I wish I had a heart to care about the awful things I’m about to do to you,” she whispers. Her voice trembles, tears trailing down her cheeks. “But you ripped it from my chest.”
“Millie,” I choke out. My chest rises and falls rapidly, panic consuming what strength I have left. “Vyraxis will come. You’ll die.” A truth.
“I am not living. This is not living, Cage. I’m a vessel. You don’t understand what I am.”
More tears fall, and I start to hallucinate. Her adult face, morphing, melting into a child’s, then back again. The sedative is dragging me under. I see the five-year-old girl I loved. My only friend.
This is the cycle, isn’t it?
I took from her. And now she’s here to take everything from me. Even when I have lost so much, there’s always more left for her to destroy.
“Lie with me…just for a while,” I whisper. It’s a phrase I used to say when we were kids.
The child version of her sits beside me, just like she did the day I left her behind, covered in bloodstains with tears down her cheeks.
She is going to die. I need to hold her just one more time.
I try to reach for her. My arm gives out and slaps the floor. “My star came to guide me home to rest.”
Her hand slips into mine. Our fingers weave together.
“Let me in.” My voice barely escapes.
She shakes her head.
I feel something wet slide down my cheek from my eye as her rejection stings.
In her death, I grieved the loss of what little I had. In her life, I grieve her refusal to let me back in.
“You promised you’d never block me out.”
My eyelids fall. Darkness licks at the edges of my vision.
“You promised.”
Chapter 48
Millicent
CAGE’S SUDDEN CHANGE IN DEMEANOR throws me off. I stare down at his limp form, then lean in to press a kiss on his cheek.
Somnex coats my lips, applied the moment I entered my room. I knew he would come once he sensed the magic stirring.
Of course, the dosage doesn’t affect me anymore. After Kalix drugged me, I began hunting for the plant. The beautiful purple petals, nearly iridescent in moonlight, caught my eye on a run with Luca. Every night, I dosed myself, slowly increasing each dose until I reached tolerance.
Let them try to drug me again.
I look to the owl. “It’s done Nora, I will retrieve the artifact.”
They all underestimated me. The collar gave me the perfect opportunity to slip into the mage’s wing unnoticed. Week afterweek, I’ve been cataloging the artifacts. I told Nora everything. And she wants one item in particular: a small golden box wrapped in spelled papers meant to contain whatever great power slumbers inside.
