Page 39 of Will It Hurt?

Jinn

A borrowed coffin awaited in my assigned room. It was a neutral black with a silken mauve interior. As accommodations went, it was on the plush side.

I knew I wouldn’t get any rest with the oncoming dawn. Not with Willa’s words echoing in my head.

Did you turn Belle to save her or yourself?

I sat in the overstuffed armchair, steeping myself in the pin-drop silence and the self-doubt that rushed to the surface.

I’d been under the impression that Belle had made a hasty decision, or Indira had somehow compelled her into seeking a bitter end.

But what if… What if all those thoughts were only white noise for a truth I couldn’t bring myself to face?

The idea that Belle had wholeheartedly wanted to end her existence…

Despite me. Despite the life we’d had together.

I’d assumed it wasn’t possible simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Even now, it sat awkwardly in my chest like a bookcase with an unbalanced shelf, ready to cast its neatly-lined contents onto the floor.

Could it be? Could I have misread Belle for over forty years simply because I couldn’t see past my own loneliness?

I know she’d struggled. I’d seen it first-hand. The weight in her voice when she said she was tired, the silence that stretched too long when she couldn’t control the beast inside her that wanted more, more, more .

There were moments when her eyes seemed to look straight through me, like she was already halfway gone, already slipping between the cracks of whatever held her together.

But we had been working through it.

That’s what I told myself. That’s what family did.

But now… The self-doubt was like a mental assault. Was I really so selfish? So lonely that I needed Belle by my side to pretend to be okay, just so I wouldn't fall apart?

I’d heard that grief was supposed to come in stages—clean, clinical phases with names like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance… as though grief could be organized and filed away in tidy folders.

But mine was nothing like that. Mine was wild and tangled. It looped and snarled and dragged me backward. It twisted around my chest like barbed wire, catching on every memory, every half-finished thought, every question that no longer had an answer.

I thought back to our last conversation over and over. Replayed it in my mind until the words blurred and broke. She had sounded tired, yes, but she always sounded tired. I’d convinced myself she was just having a hard day, like all the others.

I hadn’t, for one second, assumed she would make such a decision.

Maybe that was my failure.

It was the abruptness of it, the finality, that made me shudder. Here one minute, gone the next. It was rare in our circles. And I was fully un equipped to deal with it.

I tipped forward, setting my head in my palms as I tried to hold the pain back, but it came rushing forward anyway, cutting deep.

Belle, I whispered under my breath. Why? Just… Why?

** *

Hours passed in a hazy blur. Dawn brought the slightest hint of sunlight, which was quickly consumed by grey clouds.

My thoughts were nothing more than a jumble, and I didn’t have the energy to sort them out. Only one emotion stuck in my chest: grief.

A flurry of knocks tore through my musings. I frowned across the room, wondering if I could ignore it. After all, I’d told the handmaid that I didn’t wish to be disturbed.

“Jinn?” Willa’s voice was muffled through the thick wood. I glanced at the clock, wondering why she was awake at midday.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” she continued when I didn’t respond right away.

With a heavy sigh, I pushed up from the armchair and called for her to come in. A temporary distraction from the morbidity of my thoughts was welcome.

She was followed by a mousy little vamp who wore a pair of gold-framed spectacles that were round like little moons. He didn’t need them—none of us did. But some chose to wear the accessories they had grown attached to in their human days.

“This is Eowyn,” Willa said, her heels clicking loudly on the hardwood floor. “I thought the two of you should speak.”

“And why is that?” I asked, eyeing Eowyn’s smaller stature. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and pants, and I wondered if people sometimes mistook him for a waiter.

Willa nodded at Eowyn who cleared his throat—yet another human habit .

“I have some information that may be of use to you,” he said, pushing his spectacles further up his nose. “Willa says you’ve recently experienced a tragedy—”

I turned to shoot Willa a bemused look. We’d spoken in confidence.

“But all is not lost,” Eowyn continued despite my obvious displeasure.

“I need time to mourn,” I said curtly.

“I understand, of course.” Eowyn nodded quickly. “If that’s what you wish, then we can certainly leave you alone—”

“There is a way to get Belle back,” Willa interrupted, cutting off Eowyn’s babbling.

I’d turned away to stare out into the miserably damp day, but Willa’s words made me pause.

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” I replied stiffly. “Belle is gone. She’s been vanquished.”

“Death,” she said, crossing her arms. “Is not permanent. Our kind knows that better than anyone else.”

I tried to wrap my mind around Willa’s words, but… Indira had said this wasn’t possible.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well.” Eowyn slid his hands into his pockets. “My partner, Frederick—you probably saw him in front of an easel—he chose the same fate as Belle. Years ago now. But I brought him back.”

That made little sense.

“ You brought him back? How?”

“With magick,” Willa said in a tone that implied I should’ve known this already. “You’ll need a wytch to help you, but it’s certainly possible. Find a strong one and you’ll have Belle back tomorrow.”

Willa shrugged as though finding a wytch was easy.

“How exactly does this work? ”

“It’s called The Retractare— the retrieval,” Eowyn explained. “The wytch trails the target into the other side and retrieves them.”

I thought of Indira and the price she would demand for such a feat. She had already taken my soul—what else did I have to barter?

Eowyn continued: “We are not like humans. When we go over to the other side, all of us goes. We don’t leave our bodies behind here on earth. So when we come back…”

“We come back in one piece,” I concluded. “Can any wytch do this?”

Willa regarded me curiously. “Anyone strong enough, yes.”

I pressed two fingers against my temples, trying to align my muddled thoughts.

“I’m finding it hard to believe this could be true.”

But Willa had no reason to lie. She had no motive to involve a third party in this other than to corroborate what had happened to Eowyn and his partner.

A thought crept into my mind, uncomfortable but persistent all the same: I needed Indira’s help. I didn’t know a wytch with more power than her. She had worked hard to hone her skills over several centuries. Surely a spell like this would be child’s play for someone like her…

But the question was not if she could , but if she would. Indira had made her feelings about Belle clear. She didn’t consider my child worthy of being part of the nest.

Fuck.

A mad notion crept along the edges of my thoughts.

I could ask the neutralizer for help… It was a crazy idea since I’d tried to murder her only a few hours ago. But it clung to me tenaciously like a thorn pressed into skin.

After all, without the neutralizer’s services, Belle would still be here on this earth. With me .

From somewhere deep in the labyrinthine nest, the clock struck the hour. Noon. Four hours until sunset.

Willa released a deep sigh.

“I thought you’d like to have the information. What you do with it is up to you.”

“Wait,” I said as they turned to leave. “What was the name of the wytch who did the spell?”

Eowyn shook his head. “I’m sorry. She was a friend who passed a long time ago.”

Ugh, mortals.

“Finding a wytch should be the least of your worries,” Willa said. “I’m sure Indira would help if you asked.”

“Yes,” I said to placate her. “I’m sure she will.”

“And one more thing.” Eowyn raised a finger in the air as though trying to recall something important. “There is a time limit to the spell.”

“A time limit?” Willa and I said at once.

Eowyn nodded as though unsure which of us to look at.

“There is a certain period when the spell can take place, after which the soul would be lost to the other side.”

My fingers curled into fists. “Belle was vanquished five days ago. Do you remember the exact time limit, Eowyn?”

“Um,” he floundered. “Maybe ten days? Maybe a week?”

Maybe?

“ I’msosorry, ” he said in a rush. “That’s all I can remember. This was almost forty years ago.”

Curse it all.