The Will and the Wilds(51)

I hug myself. “What an awful place.”

“For one unaccustomed, yes.”

His voice is soft. He stares past the floor for a moment, his thoughts elsewhere. I say, “Even accustomed, it’s a terrible place.”

He nods. I open and close my hands, feeling that squishy, sucking ground beneath my palm. “My father is ill.”

“You said.”

“Very ill.” I shake my head, finding solace in the fire. It’s easier to look at the flames than at him. “He barely eats. He has a horrible cough—”

As if to punctuate the statement, my father begins hacking in the other room. I grab the armrests of my chair to stand, but he calms quickly, and I relax. This chair has the indent of his body in it. Almost like he’s holding me.

What if that’s all I’ll have left of him, come the morrow?

I swallow. “Do you have family, Maekallus?”

“No.” He hesitates. “Not that I remember.”

“Remember?”

He shakes his head. For a moment he’s somewhere else, somewhere distant, but he returns within the space of two heartbeats.

“I told you about my mother.” The flames dance, coiling around one another. The charring log beneath them splits in two. The light dims a little, turns redder, like my nightmares. “My father’s parents used to live near here, but they’re both gone.” I can’t believe there are tears left in me, but one builds in the corner of my eye. I wipe it away with a knuckle. “I’m afraid to be alone. I never have been. If Papa dies . . .”

I shake my head and wipe the tear on my skirt. Maekallus moves closer to the fire. The light spills across him, making his skin almost as red as his hair. He has human-shaped feet now, but they’re the same color his hooves were. I look over him, finding a few black specks on his arms. Otherwise, he’s safe enough from the devouring of my world.

“I know . . . the feeling.” He speaks as though the words are iron, or his throat is too small for them. I stay very quiet, even in my breathing, not wanting to scare away his voice. He folds his arms and finds his own solace in the fire. “I didn’t, before this. But your soul . . . makes me notice solitude . . . differently.”

“Is that why you wandered here?” I ask. The red light at his chest is hidden by the firelight, but the string gleams in the shadows, piercing through the wall of my home as if the wood and stone didn’t exist. “You were lonely?”

Maekallus scoffs. “Don’t judge me by mortal standards.”

“I don’t know how to judge you, Maekallus.” His gaze turns to meet mine. I will strength into my body, my heart. “You are a mysting with a soul. Almost a soul, at least. In a way, that makes you part of me.”

My eyes are heavy, and I rub them. In the black behind my lids, I see unworldly creatures from the realm beyond. I jerk my hands away. Blink firelight into my mind.

“Enna.” My name is so soft when he says it. Like a prayer.

I shake my head, wipe my eyes before tears can come. “I still see them,” I whisper. I drop my gaze to the scar on my hand. “You’re growing more human, but what’s happening to me? Am I becoming one of them? A monster?”

The fire crackles, dims a little more. I should put another log on it.

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

I turn toward him. He no longer watches the fire, only me. As though I am the fire, and nothing else exists in the space around us. I open my mouth to answer, but I’m at a loss for words.

His lips quirk, but there’s no mirth in the expression. He crouches before the fire, careful with his horn, and grabs a cooler piece of charcoal from the edge of it. Walking into the shadows before the door, he draws a circle on the floor, just large enough for him to stand in. Extends the lines, marks the eight-pointed star. The descent circle.

He tosses the charcoal aside and stands in the center of it. The lines flash blue. The light fades until it’s dull as fog, but it lingers, and I realize Maekallus is pulling on tendrils of power.

His horn disappears. His feet smooth out and turn as peachy as the rest of him. The specks on his arms vanish.

I stand. “Maekallus?” A dull ache like a rusted rod pulses from the base of my neck to my navel. He’s hiding the parts of him that mark him as a mysting. He looks perfectly human.

So beautifully human.

The fog fades, as does the power. Maekallus’s horn returns, its peak a finger’s width from the ceiling.

A question rises up my throat, and I almost dare not ask it, but I’m too tired to hold it back.

“Do you want to be freed?”

His gaze turns sharp. “Do I want to be a prisoner? Do I want to be caged and eaten by your ethereal demons?” He takes a step forward, smudging the charcoal. His voice has an edge to it that’s almost frightening. “Do I want to feel this way?”

He winces and touches his forehead as though the horn is too heavy for it. “They never last this long.” His rough voice is almost pleading. “They’re not supposed to last this long, but you’re keeping it alive.” He rips his hand away. The fire in his eyes overshadows the one burning in the hearth. He lifts an accusing finger and stabs it toward my chest. “You’re doing this to me, with that cursed stone. You’re making me feel this way. For what? So I’ll sympathize? So I’ll serve you?”