“I don’t know.” He slumped back into his chair, his fingers laced over his stomach. “I always feel that if I was free of the curse … well, people wouldn’t feel the need to stay with me. They’d leave. And I’d be…”

“Alone,” I said, shivering. I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing the whispers of spiders from my mind. “I know exactly how you feel.”

Magnus was quiet for a second. Then, suddenly, he shoved his chair back with a loud screech and went to the kitchen. I heard a bit of knocking around, and then he came back holding a small basket. He set it in front of me, removing the cloth on top to reveal injera.

Instantly my stomach growled.

“Leftover from lunch,” he said.

“What is this?” I said, breaking off a piece without waiting, pushing down any visual signs of contentment. “A reward for entertaining you?”

“A reward? No.” He had a playful look in his eyes that was infectious enough to break my stoicism into a slight grin. “I just wanted to see you finish your pasta within a minute.”

CHAPTER 10

As soon as I stepped into the hall my amulet pulsed.

It was eight o’clock—two hours before the Waking, before the Manifestations should’ve been wildly active. But the closer I came to Magnus’s room, the more dread twisted my stomach. I moved closer and put my ear to the door. There was a vague slopping sound, like water lapping on a rock. I turned the knob, but when I pushed it wouldn’t open. I tried again, putting my shoulder into it, and the door budged slowly, like something was pushing against it. I shoved one more time and stumbled as the door gave, my leg splashing into water up to my knee.

No, not water. Thicker than that … redder than that.

I gaped at the bedroom, at what seemed to be blood filling the room from the floor up, like the swiftly rising tide of a river. Magnus was still in his bed, fast asleep. I slipped in through the crack I’d managed, the shifting of the liquid shutting the door behind me.

“Magnus!” I called. He didn’t even twitch. “Wake up!” I waded across the room through the quickly rising blood, the shield of my amulet pushing the blood away from my body.

His chest was moving steadily, so I shook his shoulders, hard. Not a twitch. There was no way someone could sleep so heavily. Not naturally, anyway. Was this … part of the Manifestation?

I’d never seen paralysis like this. But then, I’d never seen a room fill with blood.