Page 8 of Blackwicket

“You should give this one to Dark Hall.”

The suggestion was ridiculous. Placing a curse in Dark Hall was reckless, and getting caught opening a portal was punishable by Annulment.

“You know I can’t reach Dark Hall.”

“If your mother could…”

“I’m not her.”

“Well, what do you plan to do with it?” He threw his hands out, frustrated with my mulishness.

The curse twisted deeper, searching for a permanent home in my breast. I couldn’t afford the gentler route, like soaking abandage before removing it from a wound. Hasty action was required, and I’d have to endure the void it left behind. I staggered to the bed and sat heavily, the mattress eliciting a distressed creak. Something dripped onto the floor beneath the frame.

Pressing the jewelry to my chest, I closed my eyes, the ache settling in. I groped for the edge of the magic, peeling at it bit by bit. Sensing my intentions, it cringed away. Curses didn’t appreciate cold, lifeless things. I’d often imagined being trapped in a lifeless host was similar to being confined in a casket with no promise of death and no knowledge of when you’d be free again.

Desperation made me callous, rough, but the harder I tugged, the stronger the curse fought, its teeth sinking deeper, the fiber of who I was warping around it. Panic rose until all I was doing was feeding this Drudge the noxious nutrients it required to stand its ground and take permanent residence. I should have stopped, admitted I needed help.

“Cricket.” Darren’s tone was uneasy.

My ribs contracted, accompanied by an audible pop of shoulder joints as the curse wrenched inward.

“Eleanora!” he barked, lunging, one hand eclipsing my folded ones. His magic was as welcome as cool water on a feverish face. Though he possessed little, he’d learned to leverage the momentum of others.

The extra force was all it took, and the Drudge lost its grip. It ascended from my throat like a wail, its vaporous form drawn back into the vessel, taking a piece of me with it. The fragment it stole was small, perhaps no larger than a teardrop, and in its place, an equal portion of the curse remained.

“That was real stupid, kid,” Darren muttered, pressing my forehead against his chest, anticipating the next unavoidable event: my swift descent into the gray realm of unconsciousness where curses and absent fathers didn’t exist.

Awareness crashed through me, and I sat up, sucking in air. For a bewildering second, the world spun as I tried to piece together my location and the state of my safety. A hard blink brought the spinning to heel, and I remembered.

“Welcome back to the world of the waking,” my father’s disembodied voice rumbled.

“I’m on the floor,” I managed, coming to a stiff seated position a few feet from the bed. Darren had rolled his coat to place under my head.

My father sat at the rickety table in its single chair, a takeaway bag filled with waxy boxes of food nearby. He was scoffing a pile of greasy noodles, unbothered.

“I wasn’t going to tuck you into that infested sack,” he said, mouth full. “Come eat.”

“You could have killed me.”

We both knew I wasn’t referring to where he’d put me to recover.

“Could have. Didn’t.” He pointed his fork at me to emphasize the last part. “Anyway, you were doing a pretty decent job of it yourself. You got all soft in the collarbones. I’ve seen that a time or two. It’s never pretty.”

“I assume you didn’t offer your gallantry then.”

“You’re my kid,” he replied brusquely.

My father had watched people die of curse rot and likely scalped the magic off their still-warm bodies. He’d saved me out of guilt or, more likely, self-interest, another reason to remain wary.

Skewering another bite of noodles, he added, “I remember you wrestling bigger monsters with much less effort back when you still had baby teeth.”

“That’s an exaggeration.” I rose to my feet, balance still dubious.

“An observation,” he rejoined.

“There were things I needed from my apartment.” I chose condemnation because I didn’t know how to express gratitude for this. By now, the Authority had discovered my collection, and they’d be eager as ever to administer their justice.

Continuing to use his fork as an instructor’s pointer, he gestured to two carpet bags pushed against the wall.