Chapter 12: If it Kills Me - The Shadow of a Vicious King

POV: E

The light outside thins into a muted lavender haze as nightfall creeps closer. Max sits cross-legged on the plush rug of her bedroom, her hands curled around a cup of tea gone cold. Diaries, albums, and spell books are scattered around us.

We’ve spent the day buried in Mabel’s albums and grimoires, chasing any scrap of insight on how to break her wards, more information about the woman in the picture, or even who I used to be. We’ve come up empty on every front.

“I think you’re a full-blooded Fae,” she says finally, snapping shut a particularly dull recollection of the Faerie seasons.

She fluffs her hair, the motion emphasizing the scent of her sweet skin—flameroot wine mixed with something earthy and floral, like the warm sand of Saffron Cove.

“Why?” I ask.

“Well, if you were a male witch, like Nick, your bite of power would feel more familiar. And earlier, you said Flaming hells, which I thought was a little weird. And it wasn’t the first time you’d said it.”

My brows raise. “Isn’t that a common saying?”

“Not in this world, no.”

She shifts to her knees to grab a diary she put aside earlier. The end of her braid curls around her breast as she moves, taunting me. I wish I could play with the small black tie holding it in place.

“Light Fae used to worship the Flame of Fate. Could be a clue that you’re not a darkling,” she adds, leafing through the pages until she finds the symbol of a burning pyre. “Here. The Flame of Fate is thought to burn hot enough to melt the frayed threads of the tapestry of the gods. It’s a big religious symbol in the Summer, Spring, and Sun courts.”

“Would that make us enemies?” I ask quickly. “If I were a Light Fae?”

A wide grin lights her face. “Not at all.”

“For all I know, darklings and Light Fae might be at war, or something.”

She rests the diary in her lap. “Rest easy. The only war I’ve heard of was between the Fae Continent and the Mist King, but there’s absolutely no mention of him in these books.” She blows air out of her mouth in a mix of boredom and discouragement. “We’ve been at this for hours. Why don’t we take a little break?”

“As you wish.”

A hint of relief washes over me. After what Mabel said the other day, I’m not sure I want to know who I am, not if it could upset Max.

Max jumps to her feet and stretches gingerly before walking to the window. The gardens are little more than smudges of brown and gray tonight. She tightens her wool shawl around her frame, rubbing warmth back into her arms. I drift closer, aching to pull her into my embrace and kiss the trail of freckles behind her ear.

Outside, the mist billows in waves, swallowing the world inch by inch. In its slow, deliberate silver whorls, I catch flashes that don’t belong—skeletal hands clawing upward, sewn mouths, eyeless faces lurking in the night.

“I could venture further out during the day, I think,” she says on a sigh. “But I’d be more comfortable leaving if I knew a way to kill them.”

I don’t want her to leave. Not even for a second, and especially not without me.

“They can’t be killed,” I say instead.

She tilts her head toward me. “How do you figure that?”

It’s another thing I just know, but I try to explain it as best as I can.

“Because they’re already dead. Living things have a soul, a light you can see within them. They don’t. They don’t even have a dark light. They’re empty shells, nothing more. I’m sure they can be destroyed or deactivated⁠—”

She grazes the fogged glass. “Look. You’re here,” she says on a rushed inhale.

I squint at the window and see the faintest hint of a man—the blurred outline of someone where I’m standing. The tiniest, barest hint that I exist.

Max appears mesmerized by the trick of light, her fingertips gently touching the window. “So you’re a soul without a body, and they’re a body without a soul?” she muses.

A smile touches my lips. “Who’s to say I have a soul at all?”

Her gaze softens. “You do.” She spins around, turning away from her reflection and whatever shard of me she saw in the glass. “I’m sure you do.”

We were speaking of empty things, of creatures that walk without souls, yet her certainty that I don’t belong in that category warms me all over. I don’t feel soulful. I feel impatient. Hungry. Wrong in familiar ways. If Max believes I’m more than a monster, I don’t know whether to cling to that belief—or fear what might happen when I disappoint her.

“My garden used to be my safe place,” she whispers before pulling the drapes shut. “It sickens me to see them out there.” With a frustrated huff, she turns away from the window.

“Read me,” I ask quickly.

“What?”

“Get your handmade tarot deck, and read me.” I don’t care if she knows I eavesdropped on her evening with Lachlan. “I want you to read my past, present, and future. How does it work for a ghost?” I add.

Her eyes shine with a hint of curiosity. “I’m not sure.”

She slides open the dresser drawer and pulls out a hand-painted box. Inside is a deck of cards, each longer and slightly wider than a playing card, and she shuffles them with practiced ease.

Max squares the cards and lays them face down on the quilt. “Touch them, first,” she whispers, nudging the deck toward me.

I press one finger to the top card, and it doesn’t pass through. A faint ripple of magic blooms beneath my touch, barely there, but enough to send my heart into a frenzy.

Max fans the cards. “Now, think about your question, and let the cards speak to you.”

I concentrate and point to three separate cards. Max slides them free without revealing them, choosing the exact ones I wanted from the deck, a sure sign that she sees me without seeing me. I don’t understand how it works, but every day the veil thins, and it terrifies me how much I want to step into her world and pretend I still belong there.

“First card.” She flips it. Her brows rise, and her voice dips, catching on the edges of something darker. “The Devil.”

The bedside lamp flickers, and a tangle of regret knots in my chest. She doesn’t explain the symbolism. She doesn’t have to.

I know what she’s thinking.

I know what she’s afraid of.

The Devil she painted is nothing like the snarling creature the card is meant to warn against. He is a man, rendered in shadow and light, his wide wings spread behind him, each white feather painted with such care they look ready to lift off the cardstock. The details are exquisite, and an itch sparks between my shoulder blades at the sight of them.

The barest hint of a memory flutters in my stomach. Of what I once was. Of what I’m not anymore.

The Devil stands for obsession, temptation, and self-imposed bondage, but the way she painted it moves me. Something dormant stirs under my ribs, no longer content to ache in silence. My heart—once still as a stone—beats like a beast waking after a long winter, famished and violent.

“So angels are devils now? Shouldn’t they be ugly, horny things?” I tease, trying not to let my emotions show.

She chuckles. “Shut up. I’m an artist.”

“If every card is painted with half as much attention to detail, you’re my favorite artist of all,” I say in earnest, drifting closer, drawn to the card, to her.

I move in behind her to see over her shoulder, and the lush, earthy scent of her shampoo dries my tongue. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck rise at my closeness, and I ache for a body she could lean into—somewhere she could rest her head.

She clears her throat and reaches for the next card, revealing two sleeping lovers. Naked. Entwined.

The woman she painted is unmistakably herself. Her long red hair snakes over a bed of autumn leaves, a few strands gleaming copper and gold across her forehead and cheeks. Freckles dust her nose and cheeks, trail down her shoulders, and scatter across her bare chest, and her eyes are closed in the soft illusion of sleep. She appears to be sinking into the earth, roots and twines cradling the contours of her body, claiming her inch by inch. The forest either means to protect her—or eat her alive. The soft curve of her waist and the gentle slope of her stomach lead into the elegant lines of her pale legs, one draped over her lover’s hips, the other stretched long across the leaves.

Her hand rests over the man’s heart.

Not in a possessive or timid way, exactly. Something between the two, like she’s holding the truth of him in her palm.

A small fire burns in her hand. A spark of desire. A flame meant only for him.

The man’s face is swallowed by shadow yet steeped in gold, every contour softened and obscured, as though she couldn’t bear to imagine him fully. Hallowed light covers their bodies in a sanctified, holy glow, and the entire card smolders. It isn’t merely sensual, but prophetic.

A wishful confession disguised as art.

“That’s the most beautiful one,” I breathe.

Her eyes dance. “You’ve only seen two.”

“I don’t need to see any more to know I love them.” Love you, I want to add. “You painted this deck with a piece of your soul, Max. It’s monumental.”

“I used to walk the trail up to Holyrood Park near the Edinburgh University library, kick off my shoes, and paint at the base of this beautifully skewed, gnarly hawthorn tree. A single card could take anywhere from one to four afternoons—so you do the math. All seventy-eight cards except for one. It took me months…”

“Why did you stop so close to the end?”

She shakes her head, pausing as if she’s just let slip a secret she once swore she’d never tell. “I guess I figured no one in this world would ever understand. I made a promise to myself, on that last day, never to return. Never to finish the last card.”

“Why?” I whisper, my voice heavy with grief.

Heat climbs up her throat, vivid as spilled wine. “Because I’m no Faerie princess, and there’s no Fae prince waiting for me. I was being naïve. Now, let’s go back to your reading.”

Something happened that day, something she doesn’t want to share.

She flips the third card.

Death.

It’s not represented as a skeleton, or a reaper, but a beautiful man who looks eerily similar to the one she was embracing in the previous card. An angel of death, with no wings this time, his platinum-blonde hair falling in bright, cold strands around his strong jaw.

Freckles of ice dust his cheeks, and he looks…sad.

Max studies the card longer than she should. Her fingers hover above it, brushing the outline of that sorrow. Her throat tightens on a tiny groan she tries and fails to hide.

“Death. That’s me, right?” I ground out. “That’s what I am.”

Her lashes flutter. She leans back to brush against me—not fully, not consciously—but enough that I know how close we are to crossing the line she drew between us. That friendship palisade she raised is already crumbling.

I press my ethereal lips to her pulse point, and goosebumps rise along the sensitive skin of her neck.

“You’re doing it again,” she scolds.

“What?”

“Flirting.”

If only she knew how much worse it is inside my head. The things I want. The things I would do if I had a body.

I smile anyway. “Should I stop?”

Her cheeks flush, answering for her as she squares the cards with trembling fingers.

“What card didn’t you finish?” I ask softly.

She hesitates, then slides open a hidden compartment at the bottom of the box, prying free one last card.

“The King of Wands.”

There he stands, sketched in graphite. The branches of a tall, white-barked tree with golden leaves snake across the card. I want to ask what happened on that last afternoon—what made her leave this masterpiece unfinished—, but I sense she’s not ready to tell.

“So,” I murmur, “you abandoned a king in need. It’s tragic. Heartless. Possibly treasonous.”

She gently strokes the sketched line of the king’s jaw, and it hits me like a blow—how lucky this man is. How much I envy him, even in black and white.

“I didn’t abandon him,” she bristles. “I simply…left him waiting.”

She exhales and leaves the incomplete card on top of the deck, returning him to his friends before sliding them all into the box. “The cards never lie.”

“And what do they say?” I ask, my voice low. “You still haven’t explained.”

She swallows hard, and the fairy lights flicker above our heads.

“That I should go to bed,” she says too fast.

“It’s still early,” I counter.

She shifts on the bed, turning away to sit at the opposite end, as if space alone could change how we feel. Then, without a word, she rests her feet in my lap, her injured calf lying on top. The lacerations are barely scratches now, thanks to the effects of her poultice, and the otherwise smooth skin beckons.

I reach for her, my fingers sliding along her calf without quite touching it. We hang there, suspended in a bubble neither of us will burst. Her breath catches, and the sound pulls me apart at the seams.

“Maybe,” I say, voice low, “you never finished painting the card because you weren’t ready to face what it would reveal.”

She lifts a brow. “About him?”

“About you. Why did you save him for last? Your king?”

“Maybe I was waiting to meet someone…fitting,” she says, her voice feather-soft and deceptively casual.

My heart gives a long, hard thud. I don’t ask if she means me, because this delusion of intimacy and longing might have been blown out of proportion by my screwed-up head. We linger there, close enough to almost touch. Close enough to fall.

Blood flutters at the base of her throat as though it’s desperate to leap toward me. She painted a king without a face because she hadn’t yet found the man who fit the crown.

“The King of Wands represents attraction. Intensity. Someone who walks into a room and shifts the axis of your world…”

Her cheeks warm. “I know what he represents.”

I lean closer, enough to feel the heat of her skin. “You left him undone for years. Almost like you were afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of someone who matched your fire.”

She clutches the card box to her chest.

“Maybe.” I graze the length of her upper arm. “You couldn’t finish him because he wasn’t ready to be seen.”

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, a hint of determination burns in her gaze. Like she’s about to tear herself away from a craving she can’t keep indulging. I don’t know how I sense all of that, but it’s there in the growing tether between us—like she’s just decided to grab her gardening scissors and cut me loose. Permanently.

The mist presses harder against the window, greedy and endless.

“Listen, E—” she starts, and my blood runs cold, a sudden need rising in me to stop her before she finishes that sentence.

“Wait. I think I figured out a way to get into the attic.”

She squints at my outburst. “I’m all ears.”

“We need to do another séance. With enough concentration, I could burn the runes off the walls. Would that work?”

She chews on her bottom lip. “If you kept physical form long enough to destroy a few of them, it might work, but last time you barely got three seconds to nudge that cane out of the way before the effect of the séance faded.”

“I might be more efficient this time around. Practice makes perfect,” I suggest with exaggerated pep.

She’s unsure. Either she doesn’t think it’ll work, or she’s guessed the real reason I want to do another séance. Why I cut her off now when I’ve been so keen on listening before. What I really plan to do with another shot at touching her. Because fuck, we’re not friends.

We could never be friends, not the way my soul howls for her. And I won’t give up without a fight.