Page 44 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Had she imagined everything from the start? Had she taken a few flowers and turned them into an entire future?

Yes, said the voice inside.

Eliza willed it to drown.

“You left home for the old me,” Henry whispered. “The knight.”

Eliza threw her hands in the air. “So that’s what this is about. Well, I don’t care that you’re an Affiliate. It doesn’t change anything for me.”

He looked away. “You don’t even know what I am.”

“Your animal link, you mean? I don’t care! You could be a hog or a skunk or even a ravenous wolf, and I’d still love you!”

She let the words hang like a sunbeam through the storm.

It was her first time confessing to him, and she’d always imagined a romantic whisper rather than a hurled accusation, but she was who she was.

Maybe she needed to accept that the storm was a part of her now.

It changed how she had to navigate, but it didn’t change her heart or the things she wanted.

And if he could just feel the same, she could navigate any storm or shipwreck. If he could just say—

Henry winced.

Eliza felt it like a slap.

“You say that like it doesn’t matter,” he said, oblivious to the way her mast had cracked in a lightning strike, the way it was plunging into the water.

He swallowed. “But what does it say about a person if they share a magical link to a wolf? Does it mean they’re aggressive?

And did the magic activate because they were innately like a wolf, or is the magic going to make them like a wolf? ”

“I said I love you!” she shouted. “Did you even hear? No, you’re too caught up in self-pity. Some chivalrous knight.”

She meant it as a return slap, and the blow succeeded, obvious in his sharp flinch. She simultaneously hated herself for it and wished to throw another. She was just trying to hold her ship together.

For a moment, Henry met her eyes, his a tortured swirl of brown and green.

Then he walked away.

“Come back here!” Eliza shouted desperately, catching his arm. But she had a tether and he didn’t. He pulled away, disappearing down a campus footpath that wound between the trees, and no matter how she strained, she couldn’t pull Silas from his bench.

Glaring over her shoulder, she found the snake’s black eyes resting directly on her.

“Let me go!” she shouted.

Without a word, he gestured at his leg, stretched out before him. She wanted to yell at him for a convenient injury, for holding her back on purpose, but her eyes followed Henry’s empty path, and she suddenly thought of how long she’d searched, praying to see him again.

Only to chase him away.

Eliza hit her knees, scraping her fingernails in the dirt. This was everything she’d feared. The worst side of her, exposed to the boy she loved. She pounded her fists twice, a scream held silent behind her tight throat.

“He’ll come back,” Silas said. “Give him time.”

She cast a hateful glance over her shoulder at the snake. “I don’t want to hear your opinion when you’ve made all of this so much worse!”

If Silas had never kissed her, never made her question everything, then she could have been more devoted. Maybe Henry had noticed how she couldn’t keep Silas from her mind no matter how she tried. Maybe he hated her for it.

Whims.

She clenched her teeth, straining against a Cast that held her in place. It was like trying to tear a stone foundation from the ground with her bare hands. She slipped in the dirt.

“Breathe,” said Silas with his infuriating steadiness.

“Choke,” she snarled back.

But she dragged in a long, slow breath, abandoning her struggle against the magic. She remained kneeling on the path.

“It always takes time for me to find the calm again,” he said. “To transform back. It’s always a struggle.”

Slowly, Eliza’s anger deflated, leaving behind an awful emptiness. Her feet prickled beneath her, then went numb. She didn’t move. She floated among wreckage, just jagged pieces of wood she’d been flailing to hold together, trying to pretend they were a ship.

“Are you all right?” Silas finally asked, his voice gentle.

Like he hadn’t witnessed her attacking the boy she claimed to love. He should have been asking what was wrong with her.

Even as she had the thought, his voice echoed from memory. You can do something wrong, but there can’t be something wrong with you.

“I hurt him on purpose,” she whispered. “Why? Why can’t I just . . .”

“Control it?” he supplied.

She turned, meeting his unwavering gaze.

“Sometimes, in a rage transformation,” he said, “we bite friends.”

She didn’t deserve the empathy, but it wrapped her anyway, removing the weight from her shoulders like someone taking a burden. Eliza looked away, squeezing her eyes shut against tears.

All she wanted was to be herself. The girl she’d been for seventeen years. The curse had taken that from her, like a pirate stealing her from home and dragging her out to the ocean. She could sail or drown, but she couldn’t undo what had happened, not with any amount of wishing.

“How did you adapt?” she asked Silas, voice trembling. “How did you accept being someone new?”

“I’m still me.” He smirked. “Just with fangs.”

She rolled her eyes, denying the little smile that almost broke through. She couldn’t smile after hurting Henry. Not when he was struggling with the same thing she was—something that had altered his life.

One more chance, she prayed silently. Please.

When Henry returned, she leapt to her feet, stumbling as the blood needled back into them. “Henry, I’m so sorry—”

But he interrupted with a strained smile. “We need to find Ceyda, right?”

She didn’t want to force her feelings on him again, even to explain herself, so she swallowed hard, and she managed a nod.