*Reader discretion advised: the first illustration portrays Light Spinner with her self-inflicted scratches (from Chapter 26). If this is triggering, shimmy on past that picture.

My arms are bleeding. Thankfully, there is still gauze in the bathroom.

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Hours passed into the morning with no sign of Light Spinner. When his stomach started rumbling, Micah walked down to the café nearby to purchase breakfast in his broken Meyan. He returned with a few pastries and baguettes, things he'd never eaten before but that Light Spinner had said she enjoyed. Perhaps eating her childhood food would be enough to make her smile.

When he returned to the townhome, Light Spinner was sunken on the couch, her eyes red and swollen. He'd grown used to the fact that she cried in her sleep - it wasn't something he could control, nor did she want help with it - but there was something new. Her arms were slashed with pink marks to the elbow, some of the marks scabs rather than simple scratches.

Micah cautiously stepped forward, and she glared at him. "Why did you leave?"

"I was hungry," he said. "The food didn't cost that many crescents. Here, have some."

"No thanks," she mumbled, shifting the blanket to cover the marks on her arms before Micah could further study them.

He took a bite of one of the pastries - he would definitely visit Delvala every now and then to savor their sweet, fancy food. "What's with your arms?"

"I was getting firewood while you were out. They don't hurt." She rose. "I'm going to get ready for the day."

That's not right. Light Spinner never wore her nightgown in front of him during the day, and if she'd been collecting firewood while he was gone, she would have either used kinesis magic or worn long sleeves, like she usually did in the winter. But what other explanation was there? Nobody was around to hurt her here. She could only have gotten those scrapes from some sort of jagged edge.

Why is she avoiding me? He finished his food, then went into the master bedroom, though she didn't approve of it. Sure enough, more firewood rested by the hearth near her bed. He sighed; perhaps the weather was just so cold it was interfering with her concentration on spells right now.

Light Spinner exited the restroom, wearing a velvet shirt and a pair of long half-finger gloves. Her purple skirts swept the floor as she dusted makeup on her eyes, not even caring that he was in a place he wasn't supposed to be. Or maybe she's too tired to care. How late was she awake last night?

Micah inhaled. Talk gently. Seems like she had a rough night. "So...where are you going today?"

She frowned, turning her back on him and exchanging her blue veil for a purple one. "To the shop. I'm buying a potion of absorption."

"Am I...allowed to come?" Please say yes. I don't want you to be alone.

To his relief, she nodded. "It won't take long, but I need it for this part of the experimentation. Wear a veil, please."

They exited the house, walking along Bel Delvala's streets. His gaze shifted to the people walking down the streets, all of whom had veils, white skin, and pointed ears like Light Spinner. Some were reading, others conversing in the elegant and articulate language that he'd been greeted in at the café. She really doesn't belong here, Micah realized. Too loud and abrasive. These folks are the types I'd get bored of in the classroom, though.

Elaborate horse-drawn carriages rumbled along the road as they walked toward the shop. Micah was taken back to Tropicilas, when his family rode a skinny horse named Angus. These people are so wealthy that they don't ride the horses. The horses do the work for them. News reporters stood at the end of the streets, proclaiming the latest updates on world events in Delvalian; Micah only recognized the words Horde and Reine Angella.

They stopped between two large, ornate buildings, and Light Spinner pulled the hood to her cloak over her head. "Come, Micah. This is where we buy potions."

"Uh...where?"

She walked between the two buildings, opening a door so small she had to crawl through it. "This way. Come."

Micah followed suit into a shop about the size of his house back in Tropicilas. It was dimly lit, with Light Spinner's faint glow being more useful than the creepy green globes placed around the room.

His throat grew dry. Crystal balls. They weren't inherently evil, but generally, looking into the future or attempting it intentionally was seen as dangerous, requiring dark magic. Its cold, sleepy touch whispered against his stomach. Sweet child...what are you, a being of light, doing in such a place as this?

Micah shivered as they walked up to the counter. The old Delvalian at the register still had perfectly black hair; Micah guessed she was around fifty. The woman didn't pay them any heed for a long time, thumbing through a book quietly.

"Is she okay?" Micah whispered.

Light Spinner frowned. "She's seventy, and likely has hearing loss. I'll need to speak to her to get her attention."

Seventy? "There's no way she's that old. She looks way younger."

"And I don't?"

"Thirty and looking twenty is a lot different than seventy and looking fifty."

She raised her voice, greeting the clerk, who replied in Delvalian. Light Spinner replied in the same tongue, and they exchanged conversation. After a moment, the woman pointed to Micah, who swallowed.

Light Spinner responded with a hiss. Was she trying to use me for the potion? Sweat dripped down his back, and he clasped his cold hands together. "Light Spinner, what did she say about me?"

"It's fine, Micah." She spoke to the woman again in the foreign language, taking off one of her gloves and revealing the scrapes on her arms. But before he could observe them, the clerk took a large, clean knife and set it to Light Spinner's hand, slicing it enough to draw a few drops of blood. Light Spinner didn't blink at the wound - her hand didn't even curl.

Micah gazed at the cut numbly. Light Spinner's eyes were hungry - starving, even. As she wrapped her hand, the look disappeared, replaced by gentle concern. "It's nothing to be alarmed by."

Micah knit his brows together. "She wanted your blood."

"Only a few drops, Micah."

This is evil. She shouldn't be here - there has to be another way. But before he could protest, the clerk spoke in that foreign language. The stench of burning blood filled Micah's nose, and he coughed. She's not thinking clearly.

He tried to run, but Light Spinner froze him with kinesis magic. Every hair turned upward, and every muscle was immobilized. He could only move his eyes as she took the little vial and released him. As Micah dropped to his knees on the ground, blood rushed back into his body, and he let out a sigh as stars filled his vision. She walked out, and he stumbled to his feet, following her.

Micah frowned as she put the vial in her bag. "What was that?" he almost shouted.

Light Spinner pressed a finger to his veiled lips, looking around. "Be quiet," she said. "We're in a city where people are probably reading. Or debating."

Micah pushed her away, not caring that he was being rude. "I try to leave a place that scares me, and your solution is to freeze me? What's wrong with you?"

She sat down, gazing at her hands. "I don't know what happened, Micah," she murmured. "I wasn't thinking clearly." She clenched her fists. "I'm...sorry. I haven't been, not since last night."

Micah longed to ask what had happened last night as she stayed withdrawn from him, but he was afraid of her answer. Light Spinner never forgot to greet him before they went to bed. "There was dark magic in that shop - you had to have felt it too. Are you sure there's none in the potion she gave you?"

A confused expression crossed Light Spinner's face. "Potions of absorption are used in common spells. Didn't you study for your last test, Micah?"

"That's beside the point," he shot back, heat on his cheeks. "Why did you have to come here to the creepy lady to get it?"

"Because here is where we get the potion to respond to me. We'll need several people to cast this spell, and if it fails, I don't want them to pay the price. I don't want someone else getting hurt."

"How could someone else get hurt?" Micah asked, taking her by the shoulders. "Light Spinner, I..." He crushed his eyes shut, dizziness hanging over him. "I'm scared. You've been staying away from me - do you not trust me?"

Her eyes swam with sorrow, and he bit his tongue, embarrassed at the accusation. Dark circles rested beneath her eyes. "I do, Micah. But not only am I bound by law not to tell you, I don't trust myself. I am tampering with dangerous things. Much could be sacrificed."

"But how? What would be lost?"

Cloudiness filled her eyes, and for a split second, her face changed in front of him. Not quite ugly, but disfigured - crowned with stripes and spots, and tiredly old. Micah gasped, and the vision receded.Was that a future vision? It couldn't be. But I was up too late last night. "You don't have to sacrifice your beauty for me."

"My beauty? Micah, you're not making sense."

"I saw something. Light Spinner, I stayed up till midnight waiting for you when I usually go to bed at eight. It's...a future vision."

"Well...what did you see?" she asked softly. "I've never had a future vision before. They're not incredibly common."

He tried to grasp for the image so he could describe it to her, but it was like a dream one had forgotten. The only detail he could remember was brokenness, but that would sound dumb. "I'm...not sure."

Her voice was quiet. "Micah, nothing will happen to me. I'm not an amateur sorceress."

She pressed her forehead to his tenderly, and Micah wanted to believe she wasn't afraid, that all his worries about her strange behavior were unwarranted. But her hands trembled beneath his the entire time. 

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Did you know...

● I have a headcanon that Delvalians age more slowly than humans, because in the show, Shadow Weaver's able to do some really high-level stunts at her age, and recover from blunt force trauma more quickly than one would expect. But the reason she looks her age is due to stress.

Tell me what you think...

● How would Light Spinner end up 'sacrificing her beauty'?