Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(61)

He took his doorknob out of his pocket and dropped it on the ground between his feet. It spun before sinking in. Alfie knelt down and gripped it. “Voy.”

The floor broke into its portal of colors, the hues of magic connecting everything and everyone. He stepped into it, hoping the magic would lead him true.

Alfie came to feeling a ring of pressure circling his middle.

He wondered if this was what corsets felt like. His neck hurt as if he’d been sleeping with his head flopping off the bed’s edge. He raised his head and saw a small spare room. A bed was tucked in one corner. There was a cracked mirror on the wall and a broken desk lay in pieces on the far side of the room. The room was a mess, clothes strewn on the floor and food left to spoil. There, beside the destroyed desk, stood Finn. She leaned against the room’s one small window, glaring at him, her nostrils flared. Her heel was wrapped in a makeshift bandage of dirty cloth.

“Where am I?” Alfie murmured.

“Interesting question,” she said, her voice terse. “Half of you is in my room, the other half is in the hall.”

“Qué?” Alfie said. His voice was syrup-slow, his mind fuzzy at the edges.

He was so tired that he must’ve lost control of the magic on the way, and now he was stuck in the middle of her door. His head, arms, and torso hung into the room, his waist was caught in the door, and his legs and backside were hanging outside in the hall. He was lucky he’d maintained enough concentration to get caught in the door instead of split by it.

“Co?o,” he cursed, exhausted.

“How did you find me?” She hobbled to him, her wounded leg stiff and bleeding. She bent before him, leaning so close that her breath ghosted over his nose. There was real fear in her eyes then and Alfie knew without question who she was afraid would find her. “Tell me how you tracked me or else you can stay where you are and be my royal doorknocker.”

The small journal still in his hand, Alfie pressed his palms to the wood and said, “Ondular.” The wood rippled as if it were made of water. Finn’s jaw dropped as Alfie stood and stepped through it. After he passed through, the wood stilled again. The hole his waist had been stuck in remained, like a peephole in a giant’s door. A wave of exhaustion swept through him.

Finn reached behind her and picked up an ax from her bed. “To think I went through all the trouble.”

“I found you by using my propio and this.” Alfie held out the journal. She snatched it from him, her face flushing with anger. When she opened her mouth to insult him, no doubt, he raised his hands in surrender. “I accidentally took it when I got my books back from you.” Beneath her fury he could see a fear so palpable that it struck him square in the chest. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “I promise, no one else is coming. Not that I know of.”

“Good. Then get the hell out of my room.”

“No,” Alfie said, and she crossed her arms, an angry surprise crossing her face, as if she couldn’t believe he had the audacity to disobey her. “I’m here because I need your help.”

“You know, everyone always seems to need my maldito help.” She hobbled away from him to the shabby set of drawers on the far side of the squat room. She rummaged through, throwing shirts and trousers over her shoulder and onto her bed, where a bag sat waiting to be packed. “Kol needed my help getting the cloak, that monster in the gray cloak needs my help in putting myself into an early grave, and a few hours ago you needed my help saving Bathtub Boy, a favor that’s brought me nothing but trouble. Now you need more help?” She gave a sharp laugh. “You won’t be getting it. I’m leaving town. So why don’t you do me a maldito favor for once and fix the hole you put in the door before the landlady sees it and throws her chancla at me.”

“Leaving town?” Alfie stepped forward, only to get hit in the face by a shirt in desperate need of laundering. He placed it on the bed. Was she so simple to think that man and the black magic inside him would stay in this city? “You truly think you can outrun what we saw?”

“I don’t think,” Finn said, rifling through her drawers. “I know. And we’re only a few maldito blocks from the Blue Thimble, Prince. I’m not staying here to wait for Ignacio to come knocking down my door, which you already put a giant maldito hole in. I’m leaving now.”

She lived in the Brim, then. He’d traveled only a short distance to get to her, and he’d still passed out midway. This dark magic had done a number on him. Alfie forced those thoughts to quiet. His mind spun trying to find a way to keep her here. He knew he shouldn’t mention it, that this would strike a nerve, but what did he have to lose? “Was it him you were trapped by?”

The girl froze. Her injured leg aside, she was upon him in a breath. She seized him by the shirt and slammed him against the wall.

“You think you know trapped, Prince? You don’t know a maldito thing. You were weeping over being trapped behind walls of money,” she snarled. “Trapped is feeling your body move without you saying so. Trapped is living with a man whose propio is controlling you with a fistful of words. If you really knew what trapped meant.” She let go of his shirt and rubbed her palms on her trousers as if he were filthy. “You would understand why I’m leaving.”

Compulsion. Now Ignacio’s words made sense, his taunting Finn about her having to obey him. Alfie had thought he’d meant it in a parental sense, not a literal one. He remembered how the man had relished in watching Alfie’s body obey his command, as if it were an extension of Ignacio and not Alfie’s at all. Guilt combed through him. She was right. He knew nothing about what had happened to her. It wasn’t fair of him to ask her to help him, but there was no choice.