Read Online Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) by Marcella Burnard - Free Book Online

tattoo.”
    He stilled.
    “What happened?” he repeated, anger tight in his voice.
    “A Live Tattoo came off a bus driver in the middle of the afternoon commute,” she said. “You might have felt that. I did. Even miles away.”
    “Yes.”
    “The bus driver died at the wheel. The bus flipped. Big pileup of cars and people. The tattoo gorged on magic and blood, feeding on people trapped by the accident. It was near overload when I got there. Stasis paper would never have contained it.”
    “It didn’t occur to you to bleed the excess magic off?” he said, jerking the leg splint free.
    Isa sat up. At least her physical body didn’t hurt anymore. She drew the blankets around her, even knowing they couldn’t shield or cushion her, and crossed her arms against the chill seeping out from behind her heart.
    “Bleed it where?” she demanded. “And how was I supposed to do that while it was trying to make a snack pack of me?”
    He blew out a breath that sounded like a curse.
    The night sky curtain of their shield collapsed to the floor, where it glistened like frost, fading slowly into the linoleum.
    “How did you get in here?” Isa asked.
    “This face opens many doors.”
    She didn’t want to know what kind of doors he meant.
    “I cannot stay,” he said.
    “Understood.”
    “I wonder.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean? You wanted your freedom. You have it.”
    “It hurts.”
    Her gaze jerked to his face, save she couldn’t see anything but shadow. Discontent rolled her like the tidal wave of magic had moments ago. How was she supposed to be happy with a situation she’d never before heard of?
    The man who’d kidnapped her was dead and her Live Tattoo had his body. She’d given a demon from another plane the freedom of this world. What did that make her? She shouldn’t be surprised he found freedom painful. Her world wasn’t always kind to those who’d been born to it. What kind of sense would it make to someone like Murmur?
    “I’m sorry,” she said, then sighed. “There’s more to the story.”
    He stilled, not even breathing from what she could hear.
    “Before I killed it, the hydra showed me someone cutting it from its host with magic.”
    Murmur hissed.
    She tightened her arms, pressing her blankets hard against her ribs.
    “The magic was pure, cold silver. I saw it earlier today, on a Magic Eater that attacked one of Ria’s gang. I’d assumed the creature had gotten trapped here, left over from Daniel and his Live Ink. Now I’m not so sure.”
    “What?”
    Isa frowned at the flat, dead question. “What the hell is happening?”
    “You can’t have fought a Magic Eater,” he growled.
    “I did.”
    “It isn’t possible.”
    “Bind ink sure as hell slowed it down,” she said, unwilling to disclose how much luck had been involved both in the Magic Eater’s and the hydra’s deaths. “And I didn’t kill it. Ria did. I couldn’t even heal, Murmur. I did what you showed me. It didn’t work. Why?”
    “Who?”
    “Walter. The man the Magic Eater attacked.”
    Fabric rustled as Murmur shifted. “Not enough magic.”
    His echo of one of Daniel’s old accusations stopped her breath.
    “The Magic Eater took his power,” Murmur said. Memory, sodden and weighted with old blood, trembled in his voice. “There was nothing to guide you. Nothing to meet you halfway. You would not help your friend Ria, either, I think.”
    “Because he has no magic.”
    “Yes.”
    She sagged. He hadn’t been saying she didn’t have enough power. It wasn’t her fault. Not her failing. Entirely.
    “Also. You were right. The Magic Eater wouldn’t have been ‘left over.’ It wouldn’t have survived the past three weeks without feeding. There would have been attacks.”
    “How did it get here, then? Daniel is dead. He didn’t pull that Magic Eater through or yank the hydra tattoo off of that bus driver.”
    “No,” Murmur said. “Uriel did.”
    “Who?”
    “Daniel’s Live Ink.”
    Isa