Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(104)

He hadn’t lost himself to the dark yet, and he wouldn’t do it now.

Alfie’s fists unclenched. The prisoner stared up at him, fear in her eyes.

“I want to make something abundantly clear,” Alfie began, the steel in his voice barely recognizable to his ears. “Just because I broke you out of the Clock Tower does not mean I forgive you. It does not mean I will ask for you to be granted clemency. It does not mean anything aside from the fact that something very bad has been released, and I need your power to get rid of it, entiendes?” She nodded shakily. Her fear only made him angrier. “Maybe if years had passed instead of months, I wouldn’t be saying this. But I need to know why you did it. I need that question answered, because until it is I don’t think I’ll be able to go on with my life, whatever little of it I have left. I’m afraid that I might just kill you myself before we even leave. I need to know the truth.”

Xiomara only looked at him, her mouth opening and closing silently.

He had no paper or quills for her to write with, but they would have to make do. Alfie pulled the sheathed dagger that Finn had lent him from his pocket. Xiomara skittered away, her back against the carriage door.

He held it out to her. “Here.”

She took it in her hands gingerly, confused.

He pointed at the wood of the carriage interior walls. “You could carve it in the wood. Just try.” He couldn’t help but add a fervent, “Please.”

Xiomara wished the girl hadn’t left her with the angry prince.

The sun had set as they tore away from the prison, and now fledgling moonlight poured through the windows of the carriage, lighting Xiomara’s pallid face with an eerie glow. She looked at the dagger in her hand. She hadn’t written in so long, and even if she had, she wouldn’t know where to begin, and she knew that whatever she said wouldn’t be enough.

Should she begin with how she had gotten her propio? She’d grown up in a home where her father beat her mother bloody. Xiomara would sit in her room with her hands over her ears, a poor attempt to block out the sounds of her mother begging, then whimpering, then silence.

It was on the day that her father killed her mother that Xiomara gained her propio. She’d found her mother lying facedown in a pool of her own blood. She’d turned her over and felt all the broken things shifting inside of her, like a bag of shattered glass. Something within her tore open and never closed, something dark and empty, all-encompassing.

She’d spent all her life wanting to block out the noise, the violence, imagining that she could send it somewhere else. Her propio took that feeling and made it real. She’d waited until her father had fallen into a drunken sleep and beat him until he stopped breathing, then the house was full of still, bloodied bodies. She’d wanted it all to go away, to just disappear.

That’s exactly what happened.

The vacuum within her became physical. A void of blackness opened in the floor, swallowed her parents whole. At her command, it closed.

Should she tell the prince about the months she’d spent on the streets, parentless and afraid of herself? Scared that she would swallow herself and the whole world if she wasn’t careful?

Should she tell him about when her propio was discovered and suddenly some very powerful people wanted to take care of her, be her new family. How kind Marco Zelas’s smile had looked when he’d wrapped an arm around her shoulder and promised to keep her safe.

So long as she did something for them.

So long as she helped him get rid of the royal family.

Should she tell the prince that her nerves had made it impossible to eat for weeks ahead of the planned day? That she’d been a teenager on her own and had let her desire for family and protection cloud her judgment?

These thoughts ran through Xiomara’s mind in a matter of seconds. The prince was still staring down at her expectantly, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he’d been chasing these answers his entire life.

Xiomara didn’t know where to begin, but she knew one thing.

She took the dagger and slowly carved into the wood wall: I want to make it right.

The prince looked down at her words, his face inscrutable for a moment. Then he breathed deeply through his nose and gave one stiff nod as if that were enough. For now.

“Just answer me this,” he said. “And please, please don’t lie. I’ll know if you lie.”

Xiomara nodded at him, a lump growing in her throat. The prince took a deep breath. His voice still shook. “Did you want to kill him? Did you want to take him from us?”

The question made her chest ache. It took her back to that terrible moment. She wanted so badly to refute it that she opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled cry came out. She shook her head with such force that her neck hurt. She felt her eyes burning.

“All right,” the prince said. His expression was hard, but his gold eyes were tinged with sympathy. “All right.”

A long silence stretched between them. The prince stared at the words she’d written, his gold eyes clouded.

“I know someone else who’s been made to do things she didn’t want to do,” he said softly. Xiomara looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He leaned his head against the carriage window and stared up at the sky as if he were searching for answers in the stars.

Finn had imagined her own death more times than anyone her age should have.