Kiersten's Arc

Chapter 10 of 33

Kiersten set the warm feather on the table by the door and washed her face. The stone house held quiet, but the quiet had a seam in it. Something small pressed against her ribs from the inside, close to where Witness lived. Not Witness. A cold thumb, testing. She thought of Fortune's warning. Open doors let more than spirits through. She pulled on her boots and walked to the keep before the seam could widen. Quantum met her at the base of the vine-wrapped staircase that spiraled up through the keep. He had a notebook under his arm and a line between his brows. "You brought a passenger," he said. He tapped his own chest, above the heart. "Not the one we know. Something that slid in behind her." "It found Eduardo first," Kiersten said. "I felt it when I woke. It wants Witness." Ananda Luminae came down the stairs two at a time, white sleeves swinging. They took one look at Kiersten and whistled low. "Oh, honey. That's a hitchhiker. Cheaper than a crystal and twice as rude." They set a hand near her sternum without touching. "It's been feeding off him a long time. Rode the last thread of your tattoo bond in before it closed." Mother Angel was already waiting at the top of the stairs by the ancient scroll monument, the one that read as you think so it shall be. She did not smile. "Name what you see in him, child. Not what you wish for him. What is there." Kiersten climbed. She put her palm on the cracked stone of the scroll. The cold thumb inside her pressed harder, hungry now, reaching for the steady light under her collarbone. Ananda struck a small crystal-crowned fire in the brazier beside her. Sparks jumped. The flame steadied. "Say it," Quantum said. "Plainly. The thing that lives with him." Kiersten closed her eyes. She saw Eduardo as a boy, holding a small light in his hands. She saw the shape that had grown over that light since. Not him. On him. "A demon," she said. Her voice shook and then didn't. "It lied with him. It taught him the taking. It came here to drink what I carry." The cold thumb jerked. Witness rose under it like a tide. Ananda fed the crystal fire and it flared white. Kiersten spoke into the flame. "I sever the tie. I keep my light. I pray his childhood light comes back to him." The thing tore free of her ribs. The fire caught it. It burned fast and small and was gone. Kiersten sagged against the scroll. Witness settled, whole. Mother Angel touched her hair. "You cut it clean. But it knew your name to find you. Others will." Kiersten looked at the empty flame. Her prayer for Eduardo hung in the air, unanswered, still hers to have spoken.