Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

13. Mir

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I swing the door open and rush into Nilam's room, ignoring Lav's incoherent whining behind my back. The place is dark, unnaturally stuffy, and it feels like walking into a current of hot steam for a moment. The chandelier's bulbs have exploded, and their glass crunches under my feet as I take a step forward, nothing but the furniture outlines guiding me.

"Nilam?"

Yaroslava follows us, quiet and sullen. She has no idea what she has just done. It's dark, yet my world's too bright around the edges, surreal, unmoored. Magic menaces to spill over, to burst out, responding to my emotions running amok.

I've been keeping my sigil's powers in check for months, not a heartbeat missed, not a feeling awry. I've been keeping my past separated from my present, and this girl ruins everything with several words? With one touch. It's always been me who knew the right words and questions, yet it's her who thumps me off balance and cracks open my old wounds.

I should have left her among the dead.

"Nilam?" I approach the sofa, but he's not there.

Show affection for someone, Father said, and they'll use it against you. And that's what she just did, isn't it?

But what have I done? Those bracelets, they were meant to keep her safe from magic--mine and his. I didn't mean to make it look like a punishment. But then she lied again, and I snapped.

I can't even bear the thought of glancing at her now because I saw her tears despite her attempts to cover them. What have I done? I've spent years burying my feelings so deep down that sometimes I could hardly believe they've ever existed at all. No one saw my lips tremble and my hands shake. Give up everything I've built because of this girl's tears? Never. It's a lie.

"Here," Lav whispers, drawing me to round the sofa. "I found him like this."

As if hiding, Nilam sits curled up in a ball under the window, his arms thrown around his knees, his eyes staring at nothing. His hat's gone, and under the weak moonlight seeping through the clouds into the room, his blue hair is dead ashen. Yet his face's even more ashen. He's like a ghost in his own flesh, touch him--and he will dissolve into thin air.

I crouch down on the floor beside him. "Nilam?" He's motionless, his breath steady, and his mouth works on inaudible words, repeating something like a mantra. "Nilam, look at me."

He doesn't hear me.

My gaze wanders around the room and finds the vial of Morox empty on the windowsill. He must have taken the rest. He must have been slipping out of Jasna's memory but decided to take his chances and plunge deeper. He's always been good at this, at risks and surviving. So bold sometimes that he's become a byword for defiance in my mind.

My head's getting heavy as the magic inside me pleads to flee. My shirt clings to my side, and sliding my hand beneath my jacket, I realize I'm bleeding. The sigil scar. The elixir I took to suppress my powers shouldn't have lost its effect so fast. Is it because of what Yaroslava has made me feel? Or because a demon is nearby.

"Nilam?" I try to lock eyes with him, but he looks right through me. "Come on, idiot. You knew I wouldn't be able to pull you awake as I used to. We already have Jasna trapped in sleep, I don't need another comatose friend to deal with."

If he got lost in Jasna's memory, he'd be still asleep, but he's not. He's halfway awake. And if he's halfway awake...What he sees now is the world of the dead--ruins and mold and decay. And I can only imagine what kinds of forsaken creatures are out there.