Within

Chapter Thirteen

“Get out, Arthur,” Janaé commanded. “Out of the building.”

“Yeah, Arthur,” I echoed. “Get out.”

His brows furrowed. “What? Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to listen in.”

“I don’t eavesdrop.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t hear,” I said, deciding to support Janaé.

He shook his head, but listened to us anyway. He walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

“Now we can talk,” Janaé said cheerfully. “Why were you cursed?”

I shrugged. “Because everyone wants to kill me, pretty much.”

“Oh.” Janaé scratched her chin. “Let’s get started. Strip.”

“Huh?”

“Take your clothes off so I can do the ritual.”

I asked dumbly, “What ritual?”

“The one to find out the conditions of the curse,” Janaé explained patiently, like she was talking down to me, almost. Did she think that she was better than me? Probably. Dryads were known for having huge egos. They were nice and all, but it was their fatal flaw. “So can you do it?”

I nodded my head, quietly removing my clothes and doing the best to ignore how cold I was now.

“Lay down,” she instructed, pulling back her braided hair into a ponytail away from her face. “I’ll tell you now: it’s not going to be pleasant. It’s a curse; they’re never pleasant.”

“Right,” I echoed as I laid back down on the bed.

Janaé hummed to herself as she undid the clasp on her briefcase, pulling out various containers and sharp objects. “So,” she began, taking my forearm and putting a syringe on one of my veins. “What’s going on between you and Arthur?”

“Arthur and me? Oh--pfft, nothing!” I answered, eyes zoning in on the sharp point that had yet to pierce my skin.

“I don’t mean to pry but--” Needle entered flesh.

“Ow!” I hissed.

“Sorry,” she didn’t sound sorry. “Anyway, as I was saying. It didn’t seem like nothing to me.” She finished drawing blood and poured it into one of vials. “And I consider Arthur to be a friend, so I’d like to help if I can.”

I stared at her, gaze dull. “You’re his friend and you don’t get hunted.”

“Why would I?”

“That’s why I’m here right now. Because they’re after me too.”

Janaé looked surprised. “Huh.”

“Why the ‘huh’?”

“Nothing, just that the old geezer only--.”

“Old geezer?”

She blinked. “You don’t know.”

“No, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No,” she said easily. “If you don’t know, then Arthur didn’t want you to know, so it’s not my place to tell you.”

I frowned at her logic. It was valid, yes, but definitely not what I wanted to hear. We fell silent.

Janaé kept doing whatever it was that involved copious amounts of pricking and drawing my blood, pinching all over my body, and putting a strange substance on me. I had the urge to ask her what the substance even was when I noticed that the previously injured parts of my body had been healed. She wasn’t really aiming at all my little cuts, they were just in the area of where she had inserted a needle.

She was working dutifully, an expression of pure concentration on her face. I had never actually seen anyone break a curse before in my entire life, so I didn’t know if she was doing any of this correctly or what she would achieve from drawing from my already low supply of blood.

The silence was killing me, and I remembered her kind offering from earlier. So I asked, “Has Arthur ever had a lover before?”

“I’ve only known him for a hundred or so years, and we don’t really talk much. So I can’t really say for sure. I think there were a few, but they all died.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.” She pursed her lips. “He never told me. Just said that they were gone. They might even be alive, if it’s like that, I guess. I’ve always just assumed that they’re dead.”

“Okay...”

“Why?”

I scrunched my face. “I guess I just wanted to know if he could love anybody.”

“He does have feelings,” Janaé pointed out with a chuckle. “He doesn’t show them much, though. Always so closed off and mean.”

I paused, remembering Nice Arthur from a while ago. He admitted from the start that he hadn’t really cared (still kind of hurt), but he had ended up being very sweet and considerate. That’s why I liked him so much, even if he was acting like a prick. “You mean he’s never kind? To anyone?”

“Despite being three-quarters angel, he managed to keep the jaded human side. Well. I wouldn’t say he’s mean. Arthur’s a nice person. Good.”

I flinched a little as Janaé poked me with a needle again. “And you said he’s always like this?”

“Indeed.”

“To everyone.”

“Figured that was implied.”

I took in a deep breath. What did that mean for me? Had he only been nice because I was so depressed? If I hadn’t been, would we even be here right now? Would Arthur have cared enough to come and save me from Coffee Guy? Or take me out to that diner?

Janaé smiled a little, pausing her work for a moment. “You like him,” she stated. “That’s cute.”

“What?” I gasped, cheeks heating. “Is it obvious?”

“Very. At least to me.” She smirked. “I’ve always considered myself to be good at reading people.”

“He was nice to me at first,” I admitted. “Then I kissed him and sort of lost that.”

“You kissed him?”

I wanted to dive under the blankets under her scrutinizing stare.“Yes.”

Janaé wiggled a brow. “Juicy.”

“Don’t... say that. Nobody says that.”

She shrugged. “Roll onto your back.”

I did as told. “Anyway, like I said, Arthur hates me now.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

Hope reared its pretty little head. “What makes you say that?”

“A hundred years, remember?”

“You said you didn’t talk often.”

She felt along my spine. “Often enough--found it!” Janaé exclaimed.

“Found what?” I bent my neck awkwardly to look at her. What was she talking about now?

“The source of the curse. Where it entered your body. See, curses can be applied in two ways. Either directly or indirectly. When it’s direct, the curse is inserted into the victim’s body, similar to a virus--making it harder to find the rules. Indirect is easier to deal with because it’s more like...” she trailed off, struggling to find a comparison. “Taking a bath, for example. Your entire body sits in the water and you... don’t care.”

I looked away, guilty as charged. I wanted to talk more about Arthur, not things that I didn’t understand.

Janaé clicked her tongue. “This means that I can work on finding the curse’s conditions.”

“Awesome,” I responded, genuinely happy.

“I say though.” Janaé pressed her warm palms against my skin. “This is quite the nasty hex you got put on you.”

“I had the feeling.” The fatigue, nosebleeds, coughing, and vomiting had lead me to the same conclusion not too long ago.

“It’s smooth sailing from here on out,” Janaé explained. “So don’t worry your pretty little head.”

I scoffed. “Will do.”

Janaé started to mutter something under her breath in a language that seemed to have no Latin or Germanic root because it sounded just like gibberish. My back started to tingle, akin to the sensation when a limb had temporarily lost blood flow.

“My, my, my,” Janaé lamented. “What a complicated curse. Whoever made it really put a lot of time and effort into this.”

“Seriously?” Lindsay really wanted me dead.

I felt her fingernail draw a line down my spine. “Yes. I have the conditions. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Janaé exhaled, voice even as she said, “The Accursed’s salvation will found in the gloried blood of the one who smiles upon her. Should the conditions not be met, the Accursed’s blood shall run dry twenty-four hours from the activation of this curse.”

“What does that mean?” I asked the moment she was done speaking. “When was the curse activated?”

“Approximately nine hours ago.” Janaé sat down on the bed next to me, sighing. “You can get up now, I’m finished.”

“Okay, do you know what it means?”

“Yes, it’s not very complicated. It’s like the owner wanted you to be cured--or at least figure out how. See, a requirement for a curse is that there has to be a solution to it. But most just make that next to impossible to doing. But this? It’s straight-forward, because they achieve what they want.”

I put my head in my hands. “And what is that?”

“You have to take Arthur’s glory.”

Arthur was as shocked as I was when he heard the conditions of the curse. “What?” he demanded, nostrils flaring. “Cam can’t even look my glory without being eradicated. She’s too weak.”

“Gee,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. He wasn’t wrong about me being weak...

“Those are the terms.” Janaé said, drinking from a water bottle. “I didn’t make them.”

Arthur shook his head. “If she takes my glory, I die.”

“If she doesn’t, she dies. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m not saying that’s what I want!” Arthur hissed. “But Cam is banshee, her body isn’t strong enough to hold my glory. It’ll kill her, maybe not immediately, but there will be a rapid deterioration of her body.”

Janaé opened her mouth, understanding registering on her features. “And in that moment, the demons will be able to get her and take the glory for themselves.”

Silence.

“So in one situation,” I began, “only I die. In the second, we both die, am I getting this right?”

“Yes,” Arthur said, rubbing his temples. “But there has to be some other way.”

“I hate to be the pessimist,” Janaé responded, “but there isn’t.”

I frowned. The obvious answer would to just let the curse end my life. Not that I wanted that to happen, since it seemed to be a pretty painful way out of life. I was scared of dying, like anyone else was. But if that was the way that it had to be, then... I guess I would prefer it be me over Arthur. It wasn’t even because I liked him. But because he was, well, Nephilim and I was a useless banshee.

I thought of the prophecy and how my time was running out, pulling up my knees and wrapping my arms around them.

The Accursed’s salvation will found in the gloried blood of the one who smiles upon her. Should the conditions not be met, the Accursed’s blood shall run dry twenty-four hours from the activation of this curse.

The glorified blood. The. Just the.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, jumping up.

“What?”

“There’s a way!” I said giddily. “It’ll just jump right out you. Okay, here: The Accursed’s salvation will be found in the glorified blood.”

Arthur raised a brow. “And?”

“The, only the!”

“You’re going to have to explain it, Camille,” the dryad informed me with a dry smile. “Neither of us get what you’re trying to say.”

“Oh, sorry.” I folded my legs. “The curse only says the. Not all of the, just the. That means any amount, right? Like, take for example, drinking a sip from a glass of water is the same as drinking the water.”

Arthur’s expression lit up. “Which means that you don’t have to consume all of my glory to survive. Just a little.”

I nodded my head, smirking because I was feeling rather smug. “Exactly.”