Within These Wicked Walls(75)

I dropped my arm to my side quickly, gripping the handle. “You mean you’re staying?”

“You think after raising you for fourteen years I’d let you die now?”

“I think you’d let me come close before saving me.” I said it like a joke, but neither of us laughed. Maybe because we both knew it was true. Normal. “And you’re right. Better the devil I know.” I put my knife away, and grinned, but only because it made me feel better about everything. “Come on, Satan, let’s go put your horse in the stable.”

“It’s fitting, since I’ll be in hell for the next few days,” he replied, but the corner of his mouth turned up the slightest bit. “The archbishop is going to lose his mind.”

The creaking of the stairs caught my attention, and I turned to see Saba hugging a folded wool blanket to her chest. Even the air around Jember went rigid when she approached.

Jember folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t look pleased to see her. How could he not be happy to see Saba again? Even I was happy to see her, and I’d only been away from her for a few minutes.

“Saba,” he greeted.

She nodded, giving him a shy grin.

He dropped his gaze to the floor immediately. Cleared his throat. “I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other. I’m just here to help Andi.”

Saba bit her lip, and then shook out the blanket, draping it over his shoulders.

“I don’t need it,” he protested sternly, and I was about to open my mouth to chastise him about being stubborn, but Saba was way ahead of me. She tucked it around him tightly, holding it in her fist by his chest, like she was threatening him. He looked at her then, and for a moment they stood in each other’s gaze.

It felt … intimate. It was a look. That was all. But I felt like an intruder to newlyweds’ first night together.

“You look exactly the same,” he murmured. His gloved hand lifted, lingering near her chin. “God … why did I let this happen to you?”

Saba slid her hands up the blanket, close to his neck, and I wanted to mentally scream at her to stop. Because, just as I anticipated, he abruptly stepped back from her touch.

And, just like that, the connection, the intimacy, was gone.

Saba looked like she might cry, but she didn’t give him long to see it as she rushed past him and headed toward the door.

“Are you moving the horse?” he asked, going after her. “I can do that myself.”

She turned on her heel in the sand and snapped her fingers before pointing at him.

“What happened to pointing being rude—?”

She rolled her eyes, moving him easily past the threshold with one hand, and shut the door behind her.

I burst out laughing. “I’ve never seen someone handle you so thoroughly.”

“Shut up, Andi,” he said, throwing his blanket at me, probably because it was all that was on hand.

I caught it and rolled it up, throwing it back. “I can feel the connection between you two. Are you sure you don’t want a second chance at this?”

Jember was silent for a moment, wrapping the blanket around him again. “Where can I get this off?” he asked, glancing down at his leg.

“Um…” I swallowed my frustration so I could think. “Down that hall, the first big room. It’s a game room with couches.”

He nodded and headed in that direction.

I sighed and went back upstairs to check on Magnus. He was sleeping peacefully. I envied him. It was a sin, but I did.

I lay on top of the covers to watch him sleep. When he woke he wouldn’t remember a thing. Not the screams, or the taste of blood. Not the fear and chaos. He’d just be weirdly adorable Magnus and I would be … haunted. I’d let a human being be torn to shreds. Maybe there was nothing I could’ve done about it, but I felt it anyway, deeper than the scar on my face. Magnus thought he was a monster? At least he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. At least it wasn’t him causing the pain.

I, on the other hand …

I let myself cry for thirty seconds, and then closed my eyes and shoved the horror of last night deep where the rest of my trauma lived … so deep it only lived in nightmares. There was just no room for it anywhere else.

Not if I wanted to keep surviving.

I heard the sheets shift, and opened my eyes to Magnus stretching, like a cat in the sun.

“Good morning,” he sang.

“It’s the afternoon, now.”

“What am I doing in your bed?” he asked, looking around the room. He blushed, gaping. “Did we…?”

I rolled my eyes, but was blushing same as him. “No.”

“Good. If we ever do I want to remember it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean ‘if we ever do’? Don’t answer that, there’s no time. You’re not free of the Evil Eye yet.”

“Oh.” His frown was deep and weary, as if all the muscles in his face were too exhausted to do anything else. “Well, that’s okay. You did your best, I’m sure—” He sat up quickly, the color retreating from his face. “Kelela!”

“She’s fine,” I said. “Asleep in your bed.” I squeezed his shoulders briefly. It was always comforting when Saba did it to me, so I figured it would work for him, too. Maybe it did, because he fell back onto his pillow again, grinning slightly.