Page 56 of Incoronate
Just what we needed.
18. THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
We convened in the living room a short while later, the air thick with tension as we sat down around the coffee table. Anita took one of the armchairs, her posture controlled and unhurried, like she'd been in this position a hundred times before and nothing about it concerned her.
I sank onto the sofa with Trace beside me, his hand finding the small of my back the second I sat down. Dominic stood at the mantle on the opposite side of the room, one elbow braced against the wood, a fresh tumbler dangling from his fingers. His dark eyes hadn't left Anita since she'd walked into the kitchen.
A beat of silence stretched between us, expectant and uncomfortable, as I waited for someone to say something. I could feel Trace's unease thrumming through our bond, even if his expression gave nothing away.
“Well,” I said, breaking the silence with forced brightness, “this isn’t awkward at all.”
Anita’s lips twitched, though whether in amusement or annoyance, I couldn’t tell. “I see you made it through the night.”
“Yup. Wait.” The color drained from my face. “That’s a joke,right?”
She didn’t bother answering my question.
“Aren’t you short a couple of witches?” asked Trace, glancing past her toward the hallway.
“I’m here on behalf of all of us. Anything you say to me, you say to them,” she answered, which I assumed was Roderick code for ‘mind your business’. “Let me see your arms,” she said, turning her attention back to me.
I hesitated for only a moment before pushing up my sleeves and extending my arms toward her. She leaned forward in her chair, her cool fingers wrapping around my wrists over the coffee table as she turned my arms over slowly, examining every inch of exposed skin.
The black veins were gone. Completely. Not even a shadow of them remained.
“The rot appears to have cleared,” she said, more to herself than to me. Her thumbs pressed against the inside of my wrists, checking my pulse. “Your body is processing the magic quite well, it seems. Or rather, it’s distributing it rather than drowning in it.”
She released my arms and leaned back into the chair, her gaze shifting between Trace and Dominic as I rolled my sleeves back down. “And you two? Any adverse effects? Fatigue? Intrusive thoughts that aren’t your own?”
I held my breath without realizing I was doing it. The very idea of either of them taking on any of the corruption, suffering for it because of me, was almost too much for me to bear.
“Nothing,” answered Dominic flatly. “I remain impeccable, as one would expect.”
Trace shook his head. “I feel fine.”
“Good.” Anita’s expression didn’t change, but something in her posture eased. “Then the anchoring is holding. For now.”
The qualifier at the end didn’t escape me, but I tried not to let it burrow too deep.
“What about the whispers?” I asked, the question bursting out of me before I could stop it. “Why can’t I hear them anymore? Are they gone?”
“The Horsemen’s Call,” she corrected sharply. “And no. They’re not gone.”
My stomach sank even though I’d already been fairly warned the anchoring spell wasn’t going to do anything for that. It didn’t stop me from hoping for it anyway, though.
“My guess is they can sense the shared power,” she continued. “They’re viewing your tethers as intruders. Obstacles in their way.” She paused, her lips almost curving into something that might have been a smile if it had held any warmth. “I’d wager they’re regrouping as we speak. Figuring out a way around them.”
“Around them,” I repeated, my throat working hard to swallow. “As in finding a way to push past my anchors?”
“The anchoring only disrupted their connection to you temporarily. Confused the signal. But make no mistake. They’re still very much connected to you. Still waiting. And when they come for you again, just like before, the call will be stronger each time.”
“Of course it will be,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair. “Because why would anything ever be easy?”
“How much stronger?” asked Trace, his voice tight beside me.
Anita turned her attention to him. “Strong enough that she likely won’t be able to fight it. Not on her own.”
The air seemed to thin in my lungs. Last time, I’d barely been able to fight it at all. The pull had been like a riptide, dragging me out to sea before I’d even realized I was in the water. If it came back stronger than that, I wasn’t sure there’d be anything of me left to fight with.
