Page 55 of Bitten & Burned

Twenty-Seven

HEXED

Caer Voss, Sol, Verdune

The streets of Caer Voss were louder than I expected.

People were yelling, talking to one another, bustling past on their way to wherever they were going.

A fresh cool breeze blew in from the sea, bringing with it the salty air combined with the fried food that was sold up and down the boardwalk.

It smelled like I was finally home. Maybe I could convince Vael to let me go down there, just for a bit.

Even if Vael didn’t want to, I could get Quil to agree. The fried dough was calling to me.

Or maybe that was just because I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to go far. Just eight blocks from my apartment to the wrought-iron gates of the Blackthorn Institute—a museum to most, but also the top research facility when it came to magical Verdunian artifacts.

It was my sanctuary, and I hadn’t been back in weeks.

My work lately had consisted mostly of trying to reverse the curse on my leg, but considering it was such an enigma to most of my colleagues, it was still considered research. My superiors had hoped I’d be able to publish a paper on the topic after a cure had been found.

Gods, I hoped I’d be able to. Not just for academic reasons, but for ‘me not having this godsforsaken blight on my leg anymore’ reasons.

I stepped through the gates, past the sandstone columns and climbing glasswork. The air here always smelled like old paper, polished stone, and lavender oil—a signature of the maintenance spells woven through the halls.

I made my way to my office on the third floor and nearly ran into Collette, one of the junior cursebreakers.

“Oh, Rowena!” She said, eyes wide as she reached out to steady me. “Gods, how are you?”

“Been better,” I said. “I’m really only here to go down to the archives and find a few books…”

“Books on what? I’ll go grab them for you.”

Collette was always like this: helpful to a fault. It used to annoy me, but now, seeing as my leg was already burning like mad from the short walk here, I was mostly just relieved.

“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked, reaching into my bag for the slip of paper my father had given me.

“Not at all,” she said, glancing down at the list. “Metalurgy, huh? Are you finally looking into the old family trade?” She grinned, and I knew she was joking, but it rubbed me wrong.

“Something like that,” I said. “Can you bring them to my office? Just drop them off on the desk if I’m not here, but I should be here until after lunch at least.”

“No problem, Ro. Listen… if these books help with that… thing… on your leg, can I have a mention in your paper after you publish? Just a footnote would help me out so much.”

Sighing, I nodded. “Of course, Collette.”

She grinned and made for the stairwell. “I’ll be back as soon as possible!”

“Thank you!” I called and turned to unlock the door to my office.

There were scrolls and letters piled into my incoming basket, but, otherwise, it looked much the way I’d left it. I hung my bag on the hook by the door.

I sat down, taking my weight off my leg. It wasn’t completely painless, but it was less noticeable now.

As I waited, I decided to start making my way through my incoming mail stack. I began at the top and started reading. I didn’t think I’d been reading long, but then came another knock at the door.

“Knock-knock! I have those books you needed!” Collette bustled in and placed the pile of books on my desk.

“That was…fast, thank you, Collette!”

“My pleasure! Anything I can do to help you out, Rowena?” She was practically bouncing on her toes.

“Yes, could you possibly send a Pulse to Thalia at her shop? Ask her to meet me here for lunch today?”

“Of course!” she said. “I’ll be back when she responds!” She hurried off down the corridor, the heels on her boots clicking as she went.

I’d gotten my books, so now maybe I could read a little, have lunch with Thalia, head to the fish market for Fig, then go back to my apartment, lie down with Quil and Vael, and then… we’d go see Silas.

Simple.

I picked up the next letter in the stack and began reading.

I was ruthless. Letter after letter, I scanned the text, seeing if it needed my response; if it did, I kept it, if not, I trashed it.

I was so deep into a notice about another scholar borrowing the Marquis codex that I didn’t hear footsteps at my door. Or perhaps, he’d just appeared there.

Either way, his voice snapped me out of it.

“You always did keep your office neater than I kept mine…”

My heart leapt into my throat, and I gaped as he stepped inside completely immune to the wards. “Silas?”

“Rowena, you know, I thought I might be the first one you sought out when you returned to Caer Voss, but I was sadly mistaken. You came here.” He looked around.

“You know, I was offered a job here as well, but I turned it down. I did, however, place most of these wards myself. Little-known fact about me.”

I gulped back the bile that crept up my throat.

“You removed your amulet,” he said softly, eyes falling to my collarbone where it normally fell. “Finally took it to your father, did you? What did old Ambrose Marlowe have to say about it?” he asked.

“Not much,” I replied tersely as I went to reach for my bottom drawer. I kept pepper bombs there. For possible threats. Nothing was more threatening right now. I couldn’t hex him, but I could do something.

Silas tutted. “Uh-uh, I would do that.”

I froze.

“Every cursebreaker knows about the bottom desk drawer failsafe, Rowena. I taught it to you. Besides, you’ll want to hear what I have to say first.”

I set my jaw, eyes flitting to the open door and hoping like the hells Collette would come back.

I slowly let my hand fall back to my side.

“Good choice. You always were a smart girl, Rowena. Now about the amulet… your father did see it, didn’t he? Don’t answer, I already know.”

I swallowed down the lump that was rising in my throat.

“He told me it wasn’t bloodstone. It’s dyed selenite. Garbage.”

Silas chuckled. “I thought it served well for my uses. Selenite holds any spell or charm. Curse or hex. Just depends on how you use it.”

“Why?” I blurted, tears dripping down my cheeks.

“Why what?”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “I never once got any sort of feeling that you thought of me as anything but a student. A protegee. I… And now you’re sending freaks hopped up on bloodroot to capture me…

to hurt me… to rape me? Why? What did I do to deserve this?

” I whipped up my skirt to show him the mark, bleeding through a bandage.

Seeping down my leg. “What? Silas? What did I do?”

“Lower. Your. Voice.” He hissed. “You’re starting to sound hysterical.”

“You know damn well I’m not.”

“But they don’t. Your coworkers. Who will they believe, Rowena? Your mentor with all his accolades? The one who got you this job? Or you, the poor, hexed cursebreaker with a bloody wound and vampires for mates?”

I swallowed thickly. “Thalia’s coming. Thalia believes me.”

“Yes, and how is an herbalist going to help you, Rowena? Gods, if anything, my being here when she gets here will put her in more danger. Now, if you’re through throwing a fit, I’d like to actually talk to you. That’s why I’m here. On neutral ground.”

“It’s not neutral if you control the wards,” I hissed.

“You’ve never known what was good for you.”

“What?”

“That’s what you did to deserve this. You’ve never known what was good for you.

You constantly looked over me time and again.

Back when you used to date your pretty boys and girls at the Arcanum, and now, when you take up with…

gods, how many is it now? Five vampires?

Why would you do that when I was right there?

When I would give you anything? Everything!

Together, do you know how powerful we would be? ”

I set my jaw. I needed to keep him talking until Thalia got here. Maybe he’d leave, and—

“Which reminds me… your companions. The ones you left in your apartment this morning? Mr. Vexley, of course, I’m surprised he let you leave to be perfectly honest. And the other one, what’s his name… oh yes, Quil.”

“What about him?” I asked, my jaw tight.

“Quil… Ashborne, isn’t it?”

My blood ran icy in my veins. I couldn’t even shiver.

“Yes, well, you do realize how utterly simple it would be to bring him back to the fold, don’t you?

His family wants him back. They have a score to settle, a taint to purge.

Now, I, for one, don’t really care about their little internal family squabbles, so I haven’t given them the signal to go through with collecting him. ”

I bristled, rage burning hot and bright inside me. I stood, gritting out, “Leave him alone. Leave him out of this.”

I lurched forward to push him back, knowing I couldn’t do more than possibly move him out into the corridor, but I had to try.

My hands smacked at his chest.

Silas didn’t flinch.

He didn’t speak.

He just watched me with that maddening calm, like this had all gone exactly the way he planned.

I slammed my hands into his chest again with all my might.

He didn’t budge.

But the world did. It twisted around me at a dizzying pace.

It was like being yanked through a sieve—sound stretching, vision doubling, the floor collapsing beneath my feet.

My knees hit the stone floor. I couldn’t breathe. My hands wouldn’t move. My throat wouldn’t open. Every nerve in my body lit up at once. I was burning alive. I was being sliced open.

The last thing I registered was Silas’s voice: “I knew you’d risk yourself for that mongrel in your bed. You’re smart, but you’re too predictable, Rowena.”