Blessed Monsters (Something Dark and Holy #3) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,30

of what he was fairly certain were fingers embedded in the dirt—he didn’t really want to investigate that further—until he knocked on the door.

It swung open on its own into darkness. He closed his eyes, almost wishing he didn’t know what was coming. He shook his head. Better to face this with dignity.

“Czijow, Pelageya,” he called, stepping inside. “How are you always exactly where I don’t want you to be?”

“I was rather enjoying watching you turning in circles in the forest.”

He was in her sitting room—the one from the tower in Grazyk?—but different. The skulls weren’t all fleshless here, and something bubbled thickly in a cauldron on her fire. The witch looked old; her white curls tied back and her face lined with wrinkles. She glanced over her shoulder at Malachiasz before turning to the fire.

“Oh, you bring a vile taste in with you, shut the door.”

Was it too late to leave? The door shut before he could touch it. Well, that answered that.

“Just you?” Her face screwed up. “Sit down, boy. You and I have a great deal to discuss.”

That wasn’t what Malachiasz wanted at all. “Not like you to want anything to do with me,” he noted, sitting regardless. They never got along, he and the witch. He turned to magic for answers, and she refused to give him any, and he hated her for it. He was volatile and rattled the order of the world, and she hated him for that.

“You bring death with you, no, no, worse than that. Something else.” Her head tilted as she considered. “What have you done?”

He opened his mouth, unsure how to answer, but she waved a hand. Filling a bowl with something from the cauldron, she offered it to him.

“Soup?”

A whimper broke from his chest. He was so hungry. He didn’t have the restraint to not desperately grab the bowl from her hands. She watched him as he ignored the searing heat and drank down the thick stew.

“Ah, I thought so,” she said softly.

The bowl was empty, and still he felt hollow. Ravenous. It clawed at him from the inside. He tasted iron in his mouth, blood and flesh and need.

The bowl clattered to the floor. Malachiasz pulled at his hair and, pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead, let out a long breath through his teeth. This wasn’t what he was, was it?

“Your true nature finally come to light,” Pelageya said. “I did think that you might escape it, beat what you are, but we all succumb to ourselves eventually.”

He curled over his knees, tears spilling past his hands as he shoved his palms against his eyes. “What did you do to me?” It hurt and beside the hurt was the knowledge that nothing he could do would sate the hunger. That the gnawing at the core of him that he had always carefully fed so very slowly to keep it at bay had finally become enough of a beast to ravage him.

“Ah, child … I did nothing.” She picked up the bowl and filled it again, crouching in front of him. “This won’t really help with that, but it will ease the mortal hunger. I feel the touch of that shin bone on you and I can guess what happened there. Not what I expected, I thought she would use it on … someone else, but it takes a lot to die and be alive again, doesn’t it?”

Malachiasz lifted his head slowly. He wiped the back of his shaking hand over his eyes before taking the bowl carefully. “Why does this feel suspiciously like you’re helping me?” he asked, trying to keep from devouring the second bowl as quickly as the first.

Pelageya leaned back, glancing at the relics in his hair. “This wouldn’t be the first time.”

Quiet settled over them as he ate, almost painfully slowly this time. And she was right, it didn’t help, but the tremors eased when the bowl was empty.

“What is this?” he asked.

“You know, sterevyani bolen, you’ve always known. You’ve been keeping it quiet your whole life, feeding it magic and progress and promising that one day you’ll get there. One day things won’t be quite so bad.”

It was what he had always held close. That someday he might know a life that wasn’t pain and disaster and the constant ache of hunger. He closed his eyes briefly, knuckling the bridge of his nose.

“You made it easy for him.” Pelageya’s eyes tracked through Malachiasz as if she wasn’t seeing him. “To