TAVRIC
I stand stupefied at Lucy's doorway, my heart stopping clean in my chest.
Lucy. A phantom. The image of her hand disappearing into that spectral mist burns itself into the back of my eyelids before I can stop it.
"What are you doing, standing there like a tree?" Jaxl's whisper is sharp, slicing through my shock. He's keeping his voice low—still thinking, I suppose, that Lucy might hear us.
I can't answer. I can't even breathe.
My silence draws him forward until he's peering over my shoulder into the empty room, scanning it once, twice. "Where is she?"
That question is the spark in the powder keg.
The curse surges upward like a tide of oil catching fire. I see red, literally, a bleeding crimson that bleeds into the edges of my vision and swallows the room whole. A roar, more beast than man, tears from my throat as I march inside.
I start kicking.
