Rosemary Thorne's Arc

Chapter 9 of 24

Damien lay on the floor inside the salt circle, warm and only warm. Rosemary's hand was still on his shoulder. He had not pulled away. The curse was out of him, but she did not know what that meant for the rules he'd made to survive it. Five rules. No skin. No promises. She had one hand on him already and did not know if she had just broken something else. She lifted her hand. She sat back on her heels. "Tell me if I did wrong." Damien looked at his own palm. The scar was a thin white line now. He flexed his fingers. "I don't know yet," he said. "The rules were for it. Not for me. I don't know which were which." "Then we find out," Rosemary said. "Carefully." She got up and put the kettle on. The three cats came out from under the table and pressed against her ankles in a tight knot, tails up, following her step for step. She filled a bowl of water and set it on the floor. The orange tabby drank. The two smaller ones watched Damien. She cut an apple in halves. The purple alligator waddled in from the garden and thumped its tail once against the doorframe. She dropped a half on the flagstones and it crunched happily. Then she cut a slice thin and clean. She held it out on her palm, not between fingers. She did not step toward Damien. She only held her hand flat where he could see it. "First rule," she said. "No food from another hand. Test it." He looked at the apple. He looked at her face. He pushed himself upright against the wall. He reached, slow, and took the slice off her palm. His fingertips brushed her skin. Neither of them flinched. He ate it. He waited. Nothing moved under his ribs. Nothing crawled. He breathed out. "One," he said. Rosemary sat down across from him, close enough that their knees touched through her skirt. She unclasped the chain at her throat and lifted off the amethyst pendant her mother had left her. She set it in his open hand and closed his fingers around it. "Keep this until morning," she said. "That is not a promise. That is a loan." He almost smiled. "Careful." "I am being careful." He opened his hand and looked at the stone. He looked at her. He reached up and touched her jaw with two fingers, the barest press, testing. He held it a second. He let go. "Two," he said. His voice was rough. "That's two." Rosemary let out a breath she'd been holding since the spell. The rules were falling one at a time, and he was the one knocking them down. She could stop guessing. Outside, the blood trail bent into the trees. The witch was still walking. But inside, for the first time in eleven nights, Damien reached for her hand and kept it.