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"I wasn't going to do it then," she said, her eyes staring blankly off. "I swear, I wasn't going to. I
mean, I was upset…but I thought…I thought I could handle it. I was trying so hard…really,
Rose. I was. But then I got back to my room, and I saw it, and I…just lost it. It was like the last
straw, you know? And I knew I had to clean it up. Had to clean it up before they saw, before
they found out, but there was so much blood…and afterward, after it was done, it was too
much, and I felt like I was going to…I don't know…explode, and it was just too much, I had to
let it out, you know? I had to—”
I interrupted her hysteria. "It's okay, I understand.”
That was a lie. I didn't get her cutting at all. She'd done it sporadically, ever since the accident,
and it scared me each time. She'd try to explain it to me, how she didn't want to die—she just
needed to get it out somehow. She felt so much emotionally, she would say that a physical
outlet—physical pain—was the only way to make the internal pain go away. It was the only
way she could control it.
"Why is this happening?" she cried into her pillow. "Why am I a freak?”
"You aren't a freak.”
"No one else has this happen to them. No one else does magic like I can.”
"Did you try to do magic?" No answer. "Liss? Did you try to heal the rabbit?”
"I reached out, just to see if I could maybe fix it, but there was just too much blood…I
couldn't.”
The more she uses it, the worse it'll get. Stop her, Rose.
Lissa was right. Moroi magic could conjure fire and water, move rocks and other pieces of
earth. But no one could heal or bring animals back from the dead. No one except Ms. Karp.
Stop her before they notice, before they notice and take her away too. Get her out of here.
I hated carrying this secret, mostly because I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't like
feeling powerless. I needed to protect her from this—and from herself. And yet, at the same
time, I needed to protect her from them, too.