Read Online Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White - Free Book Online

to the rug beneath, wrestling with my own possessed limb.
    “That’s a good girl. Keep fighting me.” The nightmare man takes more sugar. He traces something on his palm that I cannot see, and then sprinkles the bloodred crystals onto my head.
    I release my hand, and it pulls itself forward to the center of the table, lying flat with fingers evenly spread. I’m on my knees, unable to move, eye level with the hammer. He picks it up, and his smile does not fade a fraction as he says, “I am sorry about this.”



Nine
    THE SOBS RACK MY BODY. MY HEAD HANGS NEARLY to the carpet, everything anchored by my hand stuck to the table.
    “Three out of five. We’re nearly finished now, that’s a good little rabbit.” The pain crescendos in a blinding white burst of agony and I scream, scream, and scream until it breaks up into more sobs. He always gives me enough time between fingers to go back to crying.
    “By all means you should blame yourself for this, Lord Ackerly. It could have been avoided. Making me chase your magic for so long, well, of course I need a way to release the frustration.”
    I open my eyes. My second shadow is so large it takes up nearly the entire wall now, and it vibrates with menace.
    “You’ll say, must you have smashed all her precious fingers? Perhaps one would have been clear enough, but I want to leave no question in your mind that you are doing the right thing. The only thing. And if you do not lay yourself at my mercy within the hour, I will begin doing things that no amount of time will mend.”
    The world explodes in agony again, and I haven’t even the energy to scream this time. There is blood in my mouth, and my vision blurs with spots. I’m going to faint. I want to faint. Please, please, blessed spirits, let me faint.
    Suddenly, my hand is released. I slump to the floor, curled in a ball around my ruined fingers. I cannot bear to look at them. If I do not lose consciousness soon I will be sick. The pain radiates out from my hand, claws in my stomach, bursts in my head.
    The nightmare man is still talking, carrying on his one-sided conversation. I tune in and out, trying to find blackness, but pulled back from the brink of unconsciousness time and again by his voice.
    “. . . all settled then, I assume. I expect you shortly. This next bit will hurt, but we cannot have you here without a handicap, now can we?”
    I brace for whatever is coming, but, to my surprise, nothing happens. Then I hear a shrill scream, like air escaping a boiling kettle, as the nightmare man cheerfully flings venomously green sugar crystals at the extra shadow. Each eats a hole where it strikes, and though the shadow darts around, the nightmare man continues to hit it.
    I move onto my knees, biting my lip at the rolling pain—there is the source of the blood—and use my good hand to push against the table and get to my feet. The sugar bowl sits unguarded on the table. I snatch it and throw the contents into the fire, which pops and sparks in brilliant miniature fireworks.
    The nightmare man turns around, twisted smile falling into puzzled frown, and I swing the sugar bowl up, knocking it into the hand cupping his shadow-burning crystals. They fly free, landing on the unprotected skin of his face with sizzling hisses.
    He screams and shoves me to the ground. The impact jars my destroyed hand and it is too much. I lean over and vomit onto the rug.
    A stream of words I do not understand but instinctively recognize as foul and evil stream from his mouth, but then, to my surprise and disappointment, he laughs.
    I wipe the corners of my lips and sit up against the edge of the couch, barely able to see him through the red haze of pain.
    His face has angry holes eaten into it, opening onto dark patches. He takes out a pristine handkerchief and wipes one side and then the other. But rather than wiping the burns off, it’s as though he has wiped his old face back on. No evidence of my momentary victory remains.
    He