Page 78 of Harnessed in Gold

“I know.” There’s sympathy and understanding in his dark eyes. “But I’m not worried about anyone else right now, I’m worried about you.”

Because of Ember.

I pick up one of the pine branches scattered on the ground beside me and stroke its long needles like I would a cat’s tail. “What else do you know about her? Ember, I mean. Tell me exactly what emotions I’m in for. No sugar-coating this time.”

He sighs and leans back on his hands. “We have so few facts, all I can do is speculate.”

“Then speculate.”

He rocks his crossed feet as he thinks. “I suspect she knew she had fire magic long before she wove with belladonna, but for some reason, she hid it.”

“And you don’t know why?”

“We have no idea.”

Which means he doesn’t know why she suddenly decided she wanted to use both types of magic. “Was she an outcast?”

“From what I can tell, yes, at least in those years after she was rejected by the caillecha, but probably even before that. I’d imagine as soon as it became apparent she had fire magic, she would’ve been ostracized.”

“Because she’d already woven with the belladonna?”

He nods. “And obviously, at a certain point, she no longer tried to hide any of it.”

“Well, why not use it, right? Command people’s respect.” Command their fear, actually, but maybe that didn’t matter to someone like her.

Sadly, I can sympathize, especially if she tried to follow the rules and everyone still rejected her and called her an abomination. If they misunderstood her and considered her a freak of nature.

Fingers sticky from the pine needles, I toss the branch aside and pick at the frayed stitches on the toe of my tennis shoe instead. “So then this weapon was some sort of revenge thing?”You say there’s something wrong with my power? How about I make a super-ring and show you what wrong really means?

“Most likely.”

“Is it bad that I kinda feel sorry for her?”

Leo blows out a breath, watches the river, takes way too long to answer. “Does sympathizing with her make you a bad person? No, but it is potentially dangerous. If you don’t manage to harness heremotions, you could end up feeling them like they’re your own. Just like what happened with the mill-workers.”

My stomach drops. When I walked through the logging accident’s energy, I didn’t witness the tragedy like a bystander, I experienced it like it was happening to me.

Hesitantly, he explains “I’m worried that if you find yourself identifying with her, you could not only have a harder time dissociating, but you might end up feeding her emotions and making them even stronger.”

Oh god. Does that mean that for however long I’m in range of the macguffin’s energy, I’ll be a raging, vengeful, murderous psychopath?

No way.

I’m out.

I perch on my feet, crouching like a frog ready to spring.

I don’t have to do this, right? It’s voluntary. Avery and Aaron can find the damned thing, and with fewer risks to themselves than I can. I mean, how essential am I, really? What if Leo had never found me? It’s not like he would’ve given up on the search. He’d have found a way.

Coming to a wobbly stance, I cross my arms and gaze at the low sun shining a milky orange through the bare trees. Leo rises, too, but says nothing. He’s giving me space, I know, to work this all out in my head. He won’t push me one way or another, probably because he’s just as torn as I am and still feeling guilty for getting me involved in the first place.

It’s that last thought that pushes me over the edge. Maybe because I don’t want anyone seeing me as weak, but more likely, because Leo hasn’t given up on me. If he thought I couldn’t manage, he’d say so. His silence is proof that he believes in me. No overprotecting, no manipulating, no lying, no begging.

This is all on me.

I take his hand. “Come on. Let’s go back and try again.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN