Page 76 of Fallacies

He doesn’t look at me.

Pushing on despite that sting of rejection, I tell my coven, “Good news is we have it.” Realization dawns on him then, and Callan’s hand goes slack in my own, the color in his cheeks fading. “Bad news is it’s mine.”

My words catch in the air like a record scratch. Shrill in an already silent room.

It’s Devon who breaks the silence, straightening off the beam like a tall pillar of stone. “What? What do you mean it’s yours?”

It’s impossible not to wince at the way he’s looking at me. The way they are all looking at me. I almost don’t find the words to continue.

“I mean…my heart pumps it.” A wave of something cold sweeps over my skin, and I welcome it, letting it numb how terrible this is. How dirty and wrong and monstrous I feel to be standing here before them with a confession this heavy. “My blood is null because my father was a Rogue.”

There’s some cursing and some sharp inhales of breath, but I’m too dissociated from my body to pinpoint who it comes from.

But when Callan mutters, to himself mostly, “You can cross the Ward.” The room falls silent again.

I nod, my attention snapping to the kitchen when a glass hits the countertop. Pax hadn’t even set it down that hard, but with how quiet it’s fallen, it might as well have shattered.

He grips the edge of the counter, staring off into blank space, while Hunter’s gaze trails past me to Callan. Devon is trying to see if he can kill me with a withering glare, and Easton hasn’t moved a muscle—not even to blink.

“Prove it,” Nix speaks up, leaning forward as if this is a conversation that intrigues him.

My breathing hitches, my fingers tightening around Callan’s knuckles. “No, I⁠—”

“I agree with Nix,” Hunter chimes in, and my heart starts beating faster. “Not that we don’t believe you, it’s just…unprecedented. No one has ever had…that before.”

Both, he means. Rogue and Sol.

“To my knowledge at least.” Hunter looks to Easton for confirmation, and he manages a shallow nod, still unblinking.

I can hardly get a solid breath down.

“Lucina.”

I wish he would call me Chaos. Just once. Just for some sense of familiarity in this room, where I feel like a stranger to him. To all of them.

Braving a look in his direction, I instantly regret it. Callan’s gaze is pleading, grey eyes soft and somber. “Please,” is all he says.

I’m already riddled with the fear that he’ll never look at me the same, but after I show him? After he sees it? How are we supposed to repair that kind of rift? How is he ever supposed to see me as the same girl he fell in love with when I’m…not her anymore?

I certainly won’t be after this.

Calloused fingers squeeze mine, pulling me from the hole I so desperately want to be buried in. “It’s okay,” he says.

You know that it isn’t; I want to reply, but I’d only be delaying the inevitable. Pushing my problems down the road has never done me any favors, so ignore the burn starting up behind my eyes and take my hand out of his grip.

My magic is still cowering at the base of my spine, just as terrified as I am. It’s buried so deep within me that it takes a few seconds to coax it out of its shell. My exhaled breath quivers as I sift through my mother’s power and reach for the vast expanse of my father’s beneath it.

His magic isn’t afraid. Not in the slightest.

It doesn’t take long before that fearless beast rears its ugly head and slithers up my limbs, sliding down to my heavy hands. At the rush of icy power, I scrunch my eyes shut, refusing to look at anyone as I release it into the room.

The air gets cold instantly, and there’s a ripple of sharp intakes of breath. More cursing.

I can feel the shadows on my skin—dancing around my bare legs and crawling up my arms. It skates over my neck, whispering words I don’t know in my ear as it moves through my hair like a ghost.

A tear slides down my cheek, and I flinch, the sensation jarring. It’s the only warm thing about me right now. Everything else is ice cold.

When a stronger rush of Rogue power threatens to break free, I begin to panic, frantically dragging it backwards. I’ve not yet tamed it all. I’ve been working with it in fractions I can handle.