The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell (read an ebook week .TXT) 📕

Viola’s only response to Cela’s pointless threat was a quiet shake of her head. “I won’t hurt him. I can help.”

Cela didn’t move away as Viola stepped toward the bed. She wasn’t about to stand by if this little bit of a girl decided to finish the job she’d started at the gala.

“I thought I had killed him,” Viola murmured as she knelt next to the bed. “I would have tried to find you sooner, but I thought it was too late.” Pulling back the covers, she took one of Jianyu’s hands in her own, shuddering a little, probably at the coolness of his skin. Then she glanced up at Cela, her strange plum-colored eyes brimming. “Thank you. For being his friend when I was not. For saving him.”

Cela only nodded, glancing briefly over to where Abel stood in the doorway, as watchful as she felt. “I haven’t saved him yet.”

“You brought me here,” Viola said. “It’s not too late.” Her lips pressed tightly together as she closed her eyes, her face tense with concentration.

Cela waited, but nothing seemed to happen. The minutes ticked by as the silence in the room spun itself around them. The city buzzed outside the open window, but it might as well have been another world altogether, because inside the room, they were all caught in a moment of dangerous hope. Viola’s forehead wrinkled, her expression creased from some unseen exertion, her skin now damp with sweat. The hand that clutched Jianyu’s trembled slightly.

Cela glanced up at Abel, who looked every bit as unsure as she felt.

It was taking too long. Certainly, something as powerful and dangerous as the old magic could have worked by now. Something was wrong.

Cela didn’t know what she’d intended when she took a step toward the bed, but before she could touch the girl or pull her away from Jianyu, Viola gasped. Her eyes flew open as she released her hold on Jianyu and tumbled over, barely catching herself before she slumped to the floor.

“What is it?” Cela asked, stepping toward Jianyu. She took his hand and noticed that it felt warmer, but that could have been from Viola’s grasp. He still wasn’t moving. She squeezed Jianyu’s hand slightly and touched his cheek to wake him. But nothing. Jianyu didn’t so much as stir.

“Is he okay?” Abel asked from somewhere close behind her.

Cela didn’t answer her brother. Couldn’t. She turned on Viola, her throat tight with fury and grief all at once. “You said you could help him.”

But Viola didn’t respond. When she looked up at Cela, she was wearing an expression that could have been carved from stone, her eyes wide with something that might have been shock… or fear.

NOT COMPLETELY, NOT ENOUGH

1902—New York

Viola felt the fury in Cela’s voice as soundly as a slap across her face, and she welcomed it. Her hands were flat against the worn rag rug next to the bed, and her entire body trembled with the exertion to stay upright. But she wouldn’t allow herself to grovel before these strangers. Instead, she pulled herself upright, back to her knees, and leaned against the bed. Jianyu’s color looked a little better, and his breathing had improved. She took his hand again and felt that his skin was warmer now, but it wasn’t enough.

She hadn’t been enough.

Viola had allowed her affinity to unspool until she’d found the too-slow and too-unsteady beating of Jianyu’s heart. He’d lost so much blood since the gala, and she found the reason—the tear made by her blade had not healed. It had continued to bleed, and because of that, Jianyu was still very far gone.

But not completely, she’d reminded herself. She’d bought him some more time.

She’d been barely aware of the two in the room—brother and sister, she’d finally realized. Not a couple, as she’d first assumed. It was an understandable mistake, considering that she herself had never seen that sort of easy affection between siblings before. Not in her own family, at least.

There had been no time for self-pity, though. No time to think of Paolo, his hatred or his fear. Instead, Viola had thrown herself into the work of saving her friend, pressing all of her affinity, all that she was, into Jianyu’s wound. She’d used her magic as it had always been intended to be used. For life, not death.

Viola was not—had never been—a gentle creature, but in this work, she was careful and soft. In this work, she sank herself more completely than perhaps ever before, until she and her affinity had become one. Until she’d felt overheated, slick with sweat from the exertion. Until the shame she’d carried for so long seemed to evaporate in the warmth building within her.

But it wasn’t enough.

No matter how much of her affinity she’d channeled into Jianyu, his wound would not be healed. The flesh remained stubbornly insistent, fighting against her magic. She had done what she could, knitting together the tissue and bone, only to have them unravel again and again. So she’d changed direction and worked on the blood itself, urged it on until all that had been lost was replenished. Blood still seeped from the wound, but at least Jianyu was no longer in immediate danger of death. It had taken every bit of her strength.

“You said you could help him,” Cela said again, her voice as wild as the fear in her eyes, as the panic Viola felt already churning within herself.

Viola looked up at Cela, accepting her judgment.

“He told us that you could save him,” Cela demanded.

Viola was shaking her head, because she couldn’t explain it. She didn’t have words to counter the distrust in Cela’s expression—distrust that she had more than earned.

Cela took a step toward Viola. “I don’t know what you’re playing at—”

Abel pulled his sister back, his hands steady on her shoulder. “I think what my sister is trying to say is that he doesn’t look any better.”

Viola glanced