Page 171 of A Touch of Poison
“Relax, the iron nullifies your magic. Can’t you feel how wrong that is, even for a gifted human?” Sura shook her hand and spoke the words of power. “It is so.”
Kat stared, and I could see how she squeezed back. Her little exhale hollowed out my chest. Aside from poisoning Ella, this was the first time she’d touched anyone other than me in months.
And today she’d almost died.
The horror of that followed me through the corridors as guards led us away.
65
Kat
“Nice,” it turned out, was an understatement.
Our room was large and furnished in Dusk colours, with a canopied four-poster bed and sunset painted across the ceiling. Granted, it was missing a window and ivy grew in through cracks in the wall, but roses climbed over the windowsill and somehow the room wasn’t cold. Bastian muttered something about it being magically sealed. The guards removed our manacles and deposited our saddlebags—they must’ve found our stags. They left, locking the door behind them.
Bastian drew a long breath like it was the first he’d taken in minutes, and the colour flooded back into his skin.
The purple stain rushed back into my nails and fingertips, too, much less welcome.
He shuddered as if shaking off the iron’s effects, and then he was towering over me, cupping my cheek. “Are you all right? Are yousure?”
I rubbed my chest. “The healer said it just missed my heart. That’s the only reason I survived long enough to get here. But I’m fine.” I closed my fingers around his wrist. “Are you? You looked so ill.”
“A little nauseous and weak, but I’ll be fine. As long as the exposure isn’t prolonged or in the bloodstream, iron poisoning wears off eventually.”
“So… since I’m not fae, if I wore something made of iron, it would cut off my magic but otherwise I’d have no ill effects?” I felt tired and queasy, yes, but not so long ago, I’d had an arrow sticking out of my chest. I’d take queasy over that.
His expression closed down into a frown as he slid his hand to my shoulder. “Why?”
I cleared my throat and backed away, slipping from his grasp. “Don’t you want to discuss what just happened? The princess—she’salive.”
“No. Not yet.” Absently, he touched the scar on his chin.
I couldn’t argue—he had a lot to process.
He canted his head. “I’m much more interested in you explaining why you want to know about iron.”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
I pointed towards the door. “That is the first time I’ve known peace in months.” Except for when I’d sunk into his arms, utterly torn apart. “I poisoned Ella, and then I killed all those people. Even the Lady of the Lake said I can’t control my magic.”
“That isn’t what—”
“You don’t know what she meant, Bastian. Maybe that’s exactly what she was saying. I seek to control it, but I never will. Doesn’t that fit her answer?”
His mouth flattened, scar going pale.
“I can’t control my power, so I need something that will shut it off. I couldn’t live with myself if I killed someone by accident.” I swallowed, eyes burning. “I’m not sure I can live with myself after…”
Those bodies at my feet. So many of them.
He gave me a gentle shake, bringing me back. “They were going to kill us, Kat.Maybeshe wants me alive, but…” The muscles in his neck corded. “As far as she is concerned, you are expendable. At best, you saved both our lives. At worst, you saved yours. Both are worth whatever bodies you left on that battlefield.”
“But the pain—”
“Do you think they’d have given you a painless death?” He splayed his hand over my chest. “Did that arrow hurt?”
