Page 72 of Claim the Light
If I’ve gained any knowledge about myself, it’s that my power is wilder than I imagined it could be. It feels untamed. Uncontrollable, even.
But I’m no wiser as to its true purpose.
When we push open the red door and step out into the bright stairway, I’m surprised to find Beatrix sitting hunched on a step three rungs up, her head in her hands. Isaac paces along the step above her, his footfalls quiet but agitated.
I’m immediately on the alert—more so when their heads shoot up as soon as we appear.
Beatrix jumps to her feet, eyes bright with tears, her voice harsh. “Where have you been?”
She looks so upset that my imagination goes wild. “What’s happened? Is someone hurt?”
“I was worried sick!That’swhat’s happened!” Beatrix’s brow is deeply furrowed, her glare red-hot. “We looked everywhere for you. We flew over the forest. We even searched the cabin.”
Her finger jabs in the direction of the door we came through.
“We thought maybe you’d come out and gone somewhere else. We searched everywhere! Even the prisons. We couldn’t find you.” Her voice rises with every word until she’s shouting. “I thought something terrible had happened.”
“But we were right there…” I glance up at Micah.
“The cabin,” he murmurs. “The old magic.”
Fuck.I should have realized. The light didn’t spill out. Nothing was visible from the outside. And only Micah could trigger its true nature. Neither Beatrix nor Isaac would have been able to see inside it.
Concerned only with easing Beatrix’s mind, I hurry up the next step toward her, even though her scowl—and apparently her rage—only increases the closer I get to her.
“I’m okay. Really. I was safe.”Mostly.“Micah was with me. And even if he hadn’t been, I can handle myself.”
“Handleyourself?” she snaps. “Losing track of you was like losing a kitten inside the house and worrying if it got out onto the street.”
“I’m not a kitten—”
“But you’re as fucking helpless as one!” she snarls.
I pull up sharply as her speech threatens to pierce the armor I’ve been slowly accumulating around my sense of self-worth.
“Helpless?” I ask, my voice sharpening.
She takes a step down so that now she’s standing only one rung up from me and her height means she remains towering over me.
“Why do you think Lana put you in here?” she snaps. “You think it was to train you and build up your strength? Get real, Sophia. She wanted you out of the way so she can get on with the real fight. Out there. Where I should be. Not in here babysitting you.”
Micah and Isaac have stayed mostly quiet until this point, but now they both move toward us.
Micah gives a low growl that sounds like a wolf’s warning. “Beatrix. That’s out of line.”
At the same time, Isaac’s hand lands on her shoulder. “Don’t take your fears out on your friend—”
In the next second, Isaac jolts backward, retracting his hand so suddenly that his wings thump outward. He nearly misses the next step up. He didn’t tell us what would happen if we skipped a step, but his face is ashen when he drops to a crouch.
He’s nursing his hand against his chest as if touching Beatrix had hurt him.
She whirls from Isaac back to us and I find myself drawn to the color of her neck and her cheek on the left side of her face. Her skin is gray, as though shadows have gathered on that side of her.
Oh… fuck.
Micah’s focus on Beatrix appears as equally intense as mine. “Beatrix,” he says, “is your heart cold?”
Her lips twist as if she’s going to rebuke him, but then her forehead crinkles and she takes a shaky breath. She presses her hand to her chest. “I don’t feel well…”
