Page 70 of The Maiden and Her Monster

When she arrived at Chaia’s house, Imma was sitting up in bed, a tonic pressed to her lips. Her pallor was sickly still, with sunken eyes and ghostly lips crusted with dried blood. The poultices at her chafed wrists had grown dry and cracked like scaly green skin.

“How are you feeling?” Malka asked.

Imma swallowed the medicine and ran the empty vial between her palms. “I’m fine, baby . A little tired, that’s all.”

Malka walked to her makeshift worktable, where she had been left the array of healing plants she requested.

Eucalyptus clippings, sage, and chamomile leaves for Imma’s wounds.

Lemon balm to settle her sleep. Malka wrapped the eucalyptus in cloth and added it to the pot of boiling water already hung on the trammel hook above the hearth.

She had done this so many times, it was almost easy for Malka to forget what had transpired—who she had lost. But Malka didn’t want to forget.

She wanted to hold their memory close, like the stain of herbs left on her skin after using them to heal.

When the poultice was ready, Malka dragged a chair next to Imma’s bed. She peeled off the old poultice with a hot, wet cloth, and smoothed the fresh mixture on her reddened skin.

“This won’t hurt,” Malka promised, and muttered a prayer. The poultice glowed under her touch. Imma’s breath hitched as the magic seeped into her skin.

Though Imma had tried to hide her pain, her relief was visible once the magical poultice began to take effect. Her jaw slacked, and a comforted sigh slid past her lips. Malka held back tears. It meant everything to her that she could ease Imma’s pain, when once she could not.

“Come close.” Imma stretched out her hand.

Malka wrapped their hands together and fell to her knees at Imma’s bedside.

Imma squeezed her hand. It was weak, but Malka knew she would grow strong again.

“When you walked into Mavetéh, I did not think I’d see you again, Malka.”

“Forgive me, Imma. It was the only way I could think to protect you. Protect the family.”

She did not say she had failed. That Hadar’s loss still followed her everywhere, like Nimrah’s bond had once. Lingering, she had used to describe the ghost of the rooting spell’s connection between them. The same word could describe her grief.

“You felt it was your job to protect the family.”

Malka met Imma’s eyes. In them was a sadness so deep, Malka wondered why she had never seen it before.

“Abba…” Imma continued, “I know he was not good to you. I know he wasn’t good to your sisters.

But you have to understand we had not married for love.

We had married for duty. Eskravé had never been an easy place to live.

And when you girls were born, I could not fathom leaving him.

Not when I wanted you and your sisters to have a life much better than I knew I could give you alone. And when the forest—”

“Hush, Imma, please do not speak that way.” Malka ran her thumb along Imma’s knuckles. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

“When I close my eyes, I see Hadar’s face.

And it eats at me that I could not keep her safe.

That I couldn’t be her mother when she needed me most.” Imma caressed her cheek.

“You have become more than I could ever have imagined. You hold magic in your palms like it is nothing. Like it was Yohev’s gift just for you. ”

Malka shrugged. “Every Yahad could hold it if they wish.”

Imma smiled softly. “Yes, but not in the way you do. Ah, my sweet girl. I fear I will dream of that prison for the rest of my life. I fear I will dream of losing you three every time sleep takes me. Will you forgive me, Malka, if I cannot be what I once was?”

“Always,” Malka promised, eyes welling up with tears. “I love you, Imma.”

“With the might of every star in the sky . ”

Malka cried, and Imma held her until her sobs subsided. They clung to each other in silence as Imma gently stroked Malka’s curls.

After a while, Imma cupped Malka’s face in her hands, and wiped her tears away with her thumb. “Nimrah, the golem who saved you from Mavetéh. You look at her with such love in your eyes. I think I should like to meet her properly.”

Malka was glad her inflamed cheeks were hidden by Imma’s hands. “It isn’t like that.”

Imma hummed. “You never could lie well.”

Malka’s throat felt suddenly tight.

Imma smiled, but it was a sad smile. A smile coming from a broken heart. “At a moment’s notice, we can lose what we expect to have forever. Perhaps it’s worth saying what our fear wants us to keep unsaid.”

Malka found Nimrah in the attic of the shul Bachta. She was leaned against one of the stone walls with her legs crossed, nose deep in a scroll. When Malka entered the room, she tensed.

“Some light reading?” Malka teased, desperate to break the tension between them. The last time they’d spoken had been days ago, when the Maharal called them both to the shul tower. Since, Nimrah had managed to be anywhere Malka wasn’t.

Nimrah’s gaze fell to her neck. The axe wound was still wrapped in thick gauze. She had used Kefesh to fend off infection from the dirty blade, but the wound was deep, and it would take time to heal. Nimrah had been commanded to kill her, but she still blamed herself.

“He left so much behind.” Nimrah rolled up the scroll and tossed it onto the desk. “Projects he had yet to finish, unanswered correspondence with his friends across the empire. And it will never be done.”

“You were the most important thing to him,” Malka said, stepping close. “He knew what he decided to leave all this behind for.”

Nimrah slammed her fist on the desk, but her eyes were cloudy. “It should have been me! It should not have been a choice, at all.”

Malka had grown used to watching for cracks in Nimrah’s restraint, like the tiny whiskers of weeds which grew from breaks in the cobblestone. She’d always wanted to wrap them around her finger and yank, exposing Nimrah’s true feelings beneath.

Now she had her honesty. Her truth.

She thought of the words she had thrown at Nimrah days ago, with Nimrah on her knees and a dagger in Malka’s hand.

“If I’ve learned anything about Kefesh, it’s that it can be a powerful magic—one that makes you feel like you hold the power of the universe in your hand.

But it also draws the line between creation and death in a way that can be dangerous.

The Maharal gave everything to create you, but he made mistakes. This was him righting his wrongs.”

“I would have died for him.”

“And he would have lived a miserable existence afterward. Nimrah, don’t forget that he racked himself to find ways to keep you alive when the people of Valón wanted you dead. A father doing everything for his daughter.”

Malka wiped away thoughts of Abba. She had Imma and Danya, and that would be enough for her. The Maharal had been Nimrah’s family, and he was gone.

Malka moved even closer, and waited a heartbeat for Nimrah to step back, like she had so many times. But Nimrah remained where she was, which Malka took as permission to reach out and curve her hand under Nimrah’s elbow.

Nimrah’s eyes met hers, and heat crawled up her neck and sullied her cheeks.

Malka smoothed her thumb along Nimrah’s flesh forearm, where mangled cuts covered the archbishop’s commands.

“What did you do to yourself?”

Nimrah tugged at her arm, but Malka held firm.

“I never want to look upon his commands again,” she said fiercely, then eyed the word scarred into Malka’s forearm. “I will leave soon, as promised. Chaia has asked me to stay until Sigmund arrives to speak with the court, and then I’ll be gone.”

Malka breathed, then murmured, “I don’t want that.”

Nimrah’s jaw tightened. “I remember what you said you wanted.”

Malka remembered, too. She felt ashamed. Ashamed of the visceral words she had thrown at Nimrah when she was scared. Scared of her joy. Scared of her affection.

“I didn’t mean it.”

“You must mean it now, after what I have done to you.” Nimrah’s eyes traveled to Malka’s neck. She stared at the bandage, Malka knew, but the heat of her scrutiny still wakened the tendrils of desire in her belly, as Nimrah’s eyes followed the cusp of her jaw.

“No.”

“Tell me what you want, and I will do it.”

She thought of Chaia and Vilém, how their lives together were cut short. She thought of Imma’s words. She thought of the magic that lit her soul, which burned brightest when she was honest with herself.

“I want you to hear the truth from me. The truth I’ve been hiding from myself. The truth of what has grown between us. Out of a deal struck from desperation and a journey of grief and despair, we have made something beautiful. Something I don’t want to let die.”

Nimrah’s blown pupils glittered, like candlelight in the endless dark.

“Something beautiful,” Nimrah considered, cupping Malka’s jaw. She ran her hand along her throat, careful of the bandage.

“Yes,” Malka said, breathless.

Nimrah shook her head, defeated. “I cannot be beautiful for you, Malka.”

“You are—”

“You said I was a monster. And you were right. There is nothing holy about the way I think of you. There are only wicked thoughts, which plague me night and day. I think they will plague me until I am dust again.”

“Think them now,” Malka said. She hardly recognized her own voice, deep and lecherous. “Think them always.” She tilted her head and captured Nimrah’s lips between hers.

She was warm, so warm. Malka needed her. She needed her like she needed the moonlight to fill her head with dreams, like she needed the crisp air to clear the sleep away from her eyes in the early morning. Like she needed fire in the brutal winter.

Their kiss in the alleyway had been desperate and sloppy with drink, fumbling hands and lips. This was different. They were not hiding now. Malka was not hiding now. They didn’t need to rush. Not here, not again.