I weaved the cloth between my knuckles in the specific way Lin had taught me on the second day of training, knowing the likelihood of my landing a punch was slim to none. In truth, I was only extending the inevitable. I hadn’t been able to get the slowly building discomfort out of my gut, and even my sleep had been marred by one embarrassing dream after another. 

More importantly, this was pointless. It felt as such; I couldn’t even find an excuse that this was something necessary to do in my quest to find and rescue Sinéad. It was all entertainment for Valerien. 

Still, I had nothing better to do. Once I’d wrapped my fists, I steeled myself and headed out the door. 

Valerien was waiting for me in the courtyard, lounging at the base of the statue of a man with goat legs playing a flute. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his chest exposed by the wide-open shirt. It was odd seeing him without any jewelry or a long flowing coat. He was a little under-dressed.

“Aren’t you cold?” I said. 

He turned to look at me, squinting in the midday sun. If he’d been human, he would’ve looked enticing; the light made his flawless skin glow, and his long, powerful body stretched out before me, all lean muscle and elegant lines. Instead, the unnatural, eerie beauty reminded me of droplets of dew sparkling in a field of flowers — something to admire that could never be touched without breaking the illusion.

“You've secured your hands. How quaint,” he remarked with a scoff.

“Why, because you’re so skilled a lowly human like me could never land a blow?” 

“Very good, Sidra. You are becoming more aware of your limits.”

“Or I’m getting used to your arrogance.”

He stood up in one smooth movement as if lifted by a gentle breeze and looked me over, making me feel inadequate with a single glance. 

It would’ve been intimidating or humbling if I’d cared about his opinion.

“Why the sour face?” Valerien said suspiciously. 

“You want me to jump for joy?” 

“A little appreciation would be good. I am doing you a favor, after all.” 

“Which part of this is you doing me a favor? You’re looking to make a fool of me more than anything else.”

He clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You make it sound like those are mutually exclusive.” 

His strangely good and smug mood made my frustration worse. Seeing him in that sorry state yesterday hadn’t been pleasant, but this was starting to get grating.

I kept silent and begrudgingly followed him when he told me we’d go to the nearby lake, the one from which we’d emerged when I first arrived here. Unlike Lin, Valerien didn’t even disturb the snow as he walked, making me wonder if he was truly as weightless as he seemed or if this was another trick. Though it was magic either way, so I supposed the distinction was irrelevant. 

“How come you can’t try those mind tricks that Severin uses on me?” Taking the silence as a challenge, I continued, “If you want to train me in a useful way, that’d help develop my resistance, wouldn’t it?” 

Valerien spun around so fast I nearly crashed into his chest face-first and looked at me with an icy glare, lips tightly pursed. I’d probably imagined it, but the air around me felt awfully cold for a split second.

“You speak of things you do not understand,” he said. 

“Then make me understand. You owe me that much, having ‘tested’ me without my knowledge or consent before.” 

His eyes narrowed and glanced away as if looking for a way out of this conversation. I wasn’t going to let it go, not until he coughed up enough for me to stop asking. He was only torturing himself thinking he could avoid it.

Finally, he sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Such magic is not easily acquired. It must be taught. Severin received such tutelage, while I had to make do with childhood curiosity and trial-and-error, until I realized the art itself is perverse by its very nature.” 

“You mean you tried to learn it when you were younger but decided it wasn’t for you?” 

Valerien curled his lip in mockery, “Managed to decipher all those syllables, hmm? Congratulations.” 

Yes, but I didn’t understand what they meant. Why would he give up such a powerful ability? It wasn’t reasonable, not for a fae. They valued power and domination above all else.

Seeing my hesitation, he sighed again. 

“That creature you killed, the one I caught? Its kind and similar lesser fae can teach that ability to others. Perhaps I could have found myself a high fae teacher, maybe even Severin himself. But forcing myself to interact with a compulsion user would mean they would impose their will on me to show how it is done. After, I would have the knowledge of how to impose my will on others, something I did not want in the first place. Why suffer for an outcome that I find deplorable?”

There was a strange passion in his tone I’d never heard before, one that almost made me uncomfortable at how clearly the subject bothered him. I wondered if there was something to Briar’s words, the ones about Valerien being good, somewhere deep down. 

Unfortunately, he’d found a bad time to be good.

“So you don’t remember anything from that could be useful now? Nothing at all?”

“I just told you why I find such magic distasteful, and yet you insist I try to use it on you despite my wishes?”

“Look, buddy, you’ve made me do a whole lot of shit I never agreed on. At least I have the decency to ask you first.” I regarded him for a beat, then spread my arms. “Go on, give it your best shot. See if you can make me punch myself in the face, since you seem so tempted to do it yourself.” 

He recoiled at the suggestion, which was surprising. I’d thought for sure he was about to snap, and instead he just grimaced at me. His gaze was angry, confused, but a little bit curious, too. I didn’t have any iron on me and couldn’t hurt him, so I allowed myself the curiosity in return. I wondered what the whisper at the back of my neck would feel like if it came from him. I’d felt a mother’s lullaby, a lover’s caress … Perhaps his magic would feel like the indifferent gaze of a stranger.

“Fine.” Valerien offered me his hand, his face an emotionless mask once more. “You touch me, you lose.” 

I waited, looking between his eyes and his hand. It didn’t look particularly appealing, not with those horrid talons of his that had once cut through metal. 

Curious — he wasn’t wearing any of his rings.  At least he’d had the decency to take them off before challenging me to a fistfight. 

In the prolonged silence, I soon noticed there was something there, at the nape of my neck. A soft, cool breeze I couldn’t feel, yet one that filled my lungs with the scent of rain. It was distant, so faint I had to close my eyes and lean into the sensation to know I wasn’t imagining it, grasping at it like trying to remember a fading dream. 

But that was it. It didn’t grow stronger, didn’t make me want to touch him, didn’t even give me a slight migraine. I opened my eyes.

“Is that all you can do?” I said, disappointed rather than taunting. 

“It is all I want to do. Compulsion spells would have me impose my will onto yours. If I have no will, nothing I would take through force, the magic weakens.” 

“So you tried to make me touch you while not wanting me to touch you?” 

“Yes.” 

I rolled my eyes. Some test this was. 

“How do you imagine us training together if you don’t want to touch me?”

“Some things are necessary. Others are not.” 

And of course he was the arbiter of that.

I didn’t want to let this self-important ass dictate my actions and decide what was best for me. If he felt so comfortable making these judgments in my stead, then I shouldn’t treat him any different. He should work to earn my obedience.

I turned away and started walking toward Sorrow’s Nest, pleased we hadn’t gotten far from the building in the first place, “I’m going back.” 

“What?” Valerien warned.

“This is a waste of time. I don’t want to train with you. If you want to try and force me, be my guest.”

His hand closed around my forearm before I could take another step. The sudden touch made me wince, and I yanked my arm out of his grip, feeling his talons rip into my skin like tiny blades. 

The cuts started to burn immediately, and I’d barely grabbed my arm to inspect the damage when large beads of blood poured out of the swollen lines across my skin.

“What was that good for, jackass?” I yelped, holding out my arm to show him his work. 

His anger faded to confusion when he saw the blood dripping down my arm, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You think I did it on purpose?” he accused.

“Didn’t you? Are you saying you somehow forgot your nails can cut through metal and grabbed me thinking my skin is tougher than that?"

“Why did you pull away fast enough to get scratched?”

“So it’s my fault? My fault you grabbed me?”

“You told me to force you!” 

“Not like this!” 

He spat out a joyless laugh, “Do you hear yourself? Are you blaming me for not using force the way you wanted me to?” 

I sighed loudly to drown out his inane chattering and turned to leave again, desperate to be away from his idiot self. He didn’t let me take five steps before dropping from the sky with his white-tipped wings splayed to block my path. 

I glared at him with all the fury I could muster. If he was trying to tempt me into fighting him, then his methods were frustratingly effective. The only reason I doubted this was all yet another big manipulation by him was the fact I’d been the one to start this whole mess.

“You are” — Valerien’s mouth was open but no words came out, his teeth clenched in what looked like a grotesque attempt at a smile — “insufferable. It is almost as if you thrive on conflict, were you not so ineffectual and toothless once you found yourself in one.”

“Awful rich coming from someone who thinks I’m his savior.” 

“Needless to say, Sidra, I regret that evaluation now.”

I looked away, still holding my bleeding arm. The crimson droplets were pretty against the pale snow beneath my feet, distracting me from the guilt filling my chest. 

I was angry with him, and he should’ve apologized even if he hadn’t done it on purpose, because that was only the polite thing to do. Yet I knew I wasn’t without blame. I’d been the one to goad him into doing something he didn’t want to before trying to leave. 

All of this was a mess. My mother would’ve said two wrongs don’t make a right. In a sense, this wasn’t about actions, but about us as people. I didn’t understand him, he didn’t understand me. We couldn’t make a right no matter how hard we tried. 

The elf offered me his hand again, and I looked up to meet his gaze. He was still angry, judging by the tension in his jaw. 

“What?” I said. I had no wish to touch him, if that was what he was attempting to make me do.

“I can heal. Your. Arm.” The words came out clipped, barely making it past his lips, and the tone of his voice made it clear he was running out of the patience he’d regained during the short silence. 

I considered for a moment, before sighing and deciding him touching me again was an acceptable sacrifice, if he was offering truce in return.

Valerien’s nails had shrunk back and were now strikingly normal in both size and shape. With one hand he grabbed my elbow and roughly twisted it up to get a better look at the cuts. The other he put right above them, palm glowing white from within. There was a strange, tingling sensation around the wounds and I watched closely, waiting for the tears to close and the blood to stop pouring. 

Instead, it shuddered. The droplets wobbled and spread across my skin, dancing up and down in tiny strings like the legs of an insect, intertwining and mixing together again, moving and crawling in the air. I looked away in disgust and checked Valerien’s expression. Was this supposed to happen? 

Evidently not. Else he wouldn’t have been so bewildered.

“What.” His other hand stopped glowing and grabbed my wrist, yanking it — and the rest of me — closer. “How is that possible?” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Your blood is resisting.” 

“Resisting what?” 

“My magic.”

“Why?” 

“How would I know if you do not?” 

He sounded frustrated, but it wasn’t aimed at me. Not all of me, at least.

Almost as if he forgot I was still attached to the limb, he turned my arm around, twisting it into an even more awkward angle to watch the blood slowly drip down my skin. 

“H-hey, mate …” 

Whatever I wanted to say got lost as I watched the nail of his pointer finger elongate unnaturally and dip right into the biggest drop of blood. 

The air between us filled with the stench of burning hair as the nail curled and blackened. As soon as smoke started coming off of it, Valerien pulled back entirely, letting me go and taking a few steps back.

Something had changed in the way he looked at me, though I couldn’t yet tell if it was for good or ill.

“Does it burn?” he asked me. 

“Does my own blood burn me? Of course not.”

His shock faded into confusion, then determination. A long coat appeared from thin air and landed on his shoulders as he retreated another couple of steps. 

He closed the coat securely over his chest with a stern look, “Head back inside. Do not let anyone see or touch your wound, and do not tell anyone of this.” 

“Not even Briar?” I wondered.

“Not even the face in the mirror, Sidra,” he said. “Wait in your room until I return.” 

With that, he turned into the familiar magpie and flew away.

*"Toxic" by Britney Spears starts playing*

Anyway, we're not officially halfway through the first book!