Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(106)
She’d never stopped believing that if she spoke that secret to someone else, she would find nothing but looks of disgust—or worse, pity.
But she didn’t want to die with that fear festering inside her, corrupting her like the dark magic did its victims. Even if she had only a few hours left before Ignacio found her again, she wanted those hours to be hers, weightless, without a secret pulling her down as she tried desperately to swim up.
Alfie raised his head and looked at her, his eyes soft with concern. If she was going to try, why not try with him?
Why not try with a friend?
“Yes, I did,” she said, her grip on the reins tightening. “It wasn’t on purpose, though.”
“What happened?”
“My parents and I lived in a small, poor barrio where there were too many people and too little food. They pretended that things were fine, but I knew they weren’t eating so that I could.” Finn swallowed, her throat burning. “I decided to try to help. I snuck out to look for food. One night I was wandering in the alley beside a bakery where sometimes they’d toss out old bread. And I saw a loaf, burnt black as hell but a loaf all the same. When I rushed over to pick it up someone shoved me out of the way.”
Finn could see the little girl’s eyes in her mind. She couldn’t have been much older than Finn had been. One of her front teeth had been missing and she’d been covered in a layer of street grime just as Finn had—a particular coating of filth that could only come from sleeping in alleyways and rummaging through garbage for food. There was a look of absolute ferocity in the girl’s eyes as she lunged for the bread. It scared Finn to see it. Not because of the intensity of her stare, but because Finn had known that her own eyes had looked the same—scorched with desperation and fear.
“And then?” Alfie said quietly. Finn didn’t know how long she’d been quiet.
“We both were fighting over the bread, shoving each other around, scratching at each other and yanking at each other’s filthy clothes. Then I just . . .” Finn shook her head and mashed her lips together. If they’d just been standing in a different position, then maybe it all would have ended differently. “I tackled her. She fell onto her back with me on top of her. I didn’t know that there was a wooden plank on the floor behind her, one with sharp nails sticking up out of the wood . . .” For a moment Finn lost her words, but Alfie knew better than to say anything. “Someone must’ve been building something and threw that plank away in the alley.” Finn took in a breath and tried to make her voice run smooth, but failed. “When I knocked her to the ground, I could hear it happen. I swear I could hear the nails sink into her. She went silent, died in a moment. One went through her neck, through the back of her head.” Then her words were coming too rapidly to control. “There was blood everywhere, the bread was wet with it. Worst part is that when we were fighting over that maldito bread, I’d thought to myself, I don’t care if she dies as long as I can just get something in my stomach. Just a bite.” She blinked to keep her stinging eyes from spilling over. “My wish came true, it seems.”
There was a beat of silence before Alfie’s voice came, warm as a child’s blanket. “I’m so sorry.”
She forced herself to shrug nonchalantly, though her eyes kept darting to his face. The prince was so expressive that she knew the moment he felt disgust toward her, she would see it on his face, clear as day. She couldn’t help but search for it as she spoke. There would be a strange comfort in confirming what she already knew to be true—that she was as much a monster as Ignacio had always said.
His voice was feather soft. “But that . . . that wasn’t your fault at all.” She could hear every ounce of kindness pouring into his voice. She hated him for it.
“You weren’t there,” she snapped. “You wouldn’t know whose maldito fault it was.” She didn’t want to tell him about her parents, about what Ignacio had done to them, thanks to her. The wound was too fresh to speak of. She couldn’t bear to say it aloud. “Before this dark magic, the restriction on Ignacio’s propio was that he needed to know something about you to control you with his propio. Something you would share with hardly anyone.” Finn swallowed, her throat working. “When I told him about that little girl, he had all he needed to own me. He wanted to be the only person in my life. When I reached for anyone else, tried to make a connection, he commanded me to kill them.” The prince stilled, and she couldn’t bear the thought of looking at his face and seeing disgust there. Still, she couldn’t stop the words from parting her lips. “And the deaths were never merciful. With Ignacio it was always slow, personal. My hands wrapped around someone’s neck and him telling me to squeeze.” In a flash of searing memory Finn could remember the boy struggling beneath her, how he’d clawed at her fingers and scraped his heels against the ground as she’d closed her fingers tighter and tighter around his throat. “A stabbing and a slow bleed. Poison slipped into a goblet.” Finn couldn’t help but think of Bathtub Boy dying on the floor, his eyes weeping blood, the prince crying out.
“Finn,” Alfie said. “It wasn’t your fault.” He sat up then and looked at her. She turned away, her eyes trained on the road. “Look at me please.” With a ragged breath Finn met his eyes. There she saw concern and something else that she refused to name—an emotion that met her eyes without fear, yet she was afraid of it still. Afraid that seeing such a thing in his eyes would unspool something she’d kept coiled tight inside of her for so long. “You are no monster. Even if you’ve been made to think so.” His voice was quiet but strong. “I won’t let you die thinking it. I won’t.”