Page 35 of Incoronate
Dominic’s lips curled back over his teeth. “That boy is useless.”
“Well,that boyjust drained himself and two other people trying to save her life,” fired Trace, his demeanor switching from defensive to openly confrontational. “What exactly haveyou done for her besides stand there and watch like some kind of vulture waiting for her to—”
“Finish that sentence,” snarled Dominic. “I dare you.”
The room felt as though it were going to detonate. As though the house itself was holding its breath, bracing for impact. One more word. One wrong inflection. That was all it would take.
My fingernails dug into Trace’s hand, a silent plea for him to stop.
Trace. I tried to push the thought toward him, but I wasn’t sure if it made it through the noise.Please.
“Look, if you want to make this about me, then go right the fuck ahead,” said Trace, shaking his head at Dominic as though he were a lost cause. “But threatening Caleb or anyone else in this room isn’t going to fix what’s happening to her. It’s just going to make everything worse.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.Nothingcould be worse than this,” said Dominic, his voice fraying at the edges. “Watching her slip away by inches while everyone around me wrings their hands and tells me there’s nothing to be done. I can think of no crueler form of torment than this, so forgive me if I’m not interested in your lectures on keeping calm.”
“You think Iwantto be calm? I can fuckinghearher thoughts,” he reminded him. “Every single one of them. I know exactly how much pain she’s in, how hard it’s getting for her to think straight, how the voices are getting louder. I fucking feel it all—”
“Then do something about it.”
“I AM!” boomed Trace, loud enough to make Carly and Morgan recoil. “I’m doing everything I can! But unlike you, I’m not going to start breaking people to make myself feel better about the fact that I’m helpless!”
“Alright, that’s enough.” The sound of Gabriel’s voice sliced through the room and the argument in one fell swoop. Everyone turned to find him standing in the doorway with my sister. “Both of you need to knock it off. Every second you spend threatening each other is another second the spell rot has to spread. So unless one of you plans to magically reverse corruption with posturing and tearing each other apart, I suggest you all stand down.”
Dominic ground his molars and then stalked back to lean his arm against the mantel as Trace exhaled roughly, his hold on me never wavering though.
“I expected better.” Gabriel shook his head, his gaze moving between them. “From both of you.”
My attention drifted over his shoulder to my sister. She was still staring at me, her face going progressively paler as she tracked the black lines all over my body. I watched her gaze move from my hands to my arms, then across my collarbone and up toward my throat.
I imagined the corruption was making its way to my mouth next seeing as I couldn’t seem to form proper words anymore.
“Jesus. Why didn’t anyone call me?” she asked as she crossed the room to me and crouched down beside me. She touched her palm to my forehead, her breath catching as she registered the heat burning through me. “She’s burning up again. It wasn’t this bad this morning.” She glanced up at Trace, then Dominic, then Caleb, her eyes wide and terror-filled. “How is it moving this fast?”
“Unfortunately, she’s the perfect conduit,” answered Caleb despondently. “The spell rot feeds on power, and Jemma has an unlimited supply of it. There’s no ceiling or cut-off whatsoever. At this point, it’s just compounding.”
“Then why are you just standing there? Do something!”
“I did. I mean, I tried,” he said, shaking his head in despair. “The healing spell failed. There’s nothing any of us can do.”
Tessa gaped at him. “Are you kidding me right now, Caleb? That’s not good enough!” she snapped, shooting back up. “I don’t accept that.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face as if to erase all the horror from his mind. “I gave it everything I had. It…it just wasn’t enough.”
“We all did,” added Carly as she tucked a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear. “This is beyond what any of us can handle. We need the Higher Ups.”
“Hardly.” Morgan scoffed. “The Higher Ups are half the reason she’s in this mess,” she reminded her. “They’re not going to do shit to help her. If anything, they’ll find a way to make it worse.”
“She’s right,” agreed Trace. “If they didn’t force the anointing spell into her and overload her system, none of this would be happening right now.”
Carly blanched, her mouth pressing into a hard line.
“Then what?” said Tessa, the last word coming apart at the hands of a desperation I’d never heard from her before. “We just sit back and let this thing take her?” She looked around frantically, searching each face as though there was anything any of them could have done.
But there wasn’t, and I knew that.
My sister just hadn’t gotten there yet.
She rounded on Dominic as something raw and feral flashed through her expression. “You have to do something,” she hissed, the demand striking hard between them.
