“Mags, what is wrong with you? How could you have been so horrible? You aren’t stupid, you knew better than to run that course in the dark! Why did you do this to Dallen?” burst out of her, her voice shrill with accusation. “Why did you hurt him?”
Well it looked as if he was not the only person to blame himself.
“I didn’ do it!” he snapped, without thinking, lashing back defensively. He went in an instant from anguished to angry. It sounded as if she thought he had taken a crowbar to Dallen’s legs! “It were a horrible accident! We was runnin’ obstacles! An—something—”
“Why were you running obstacles in the dark?” she retorted, interrupting him before he could tell her about the murderous mind he had brushed up against, her cheeks red with fury. “How stupid is that? What were you thinking, why did you make Dallen do that?”
“I didn’ make him do anything!” Mags shouted back, then glanced guiltily at the poor hanging Companion. If he hadn’t been so low, would Dallen ever have suggested such a thing? “ ’E was the one that said we should do it!”
“Did he want to, or were you so drowning in feeling sorry for yourself that he would do anything, no matter how stupid it was, to get you out of it?” she shouted back. “Bear was right! You don’t care about anything but yourself! You won’t even take responsibility for this! You’re horrible! You’re a horrible, horrible person and you probably are going to try and kill the King, because anyone that would do this to Dallen would do anything!”
He almost jumped up out of the straw and hit her. He did jump to his feet, and he had to fight with himself not to hit her, or grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled, or shove her to the ground. His hands clenched and unclenched, his chest heaved and hurt, and his head spun in circles.
And the awful thought went through his mind then that if Dallen died... if Dallen died, he wouldn’t care about anything. He would go crazy. If he could have to fight not to hurt Lena right now, there would be nothing holding him back if that happened. He’d just want everything else to hurt as much as he did. And no matter who it was that was in front of him at that moment—if they came at him the way Lena was now, there was no telling what he would do to them.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what the Foreseers had seen. The moment when he snapped and did the unthinkable.
Meanwhile words, awful, hurtful words poured out of his mouth, and he could do nothing to stop them. “Get out, ye worthless bint!” he screamed back at her. “Ye get in ’ere on the strength of yer pa’s reputation, an’ ye cain’t even sing a simple song in front of people wi’out sommun holdin’ yer hand an’ tellin’ ye wot ter do, an’ ye dare tell me all thet stuff? Ye close yersel’ in yer room an’ sulk fer days ev’time summat goes wrong, ye make half yer Collegium try and cosset ye back t’ actin’ like somethin’ other than a wee babby, an’ ye tell me I am th’ one thet on’y keers fer hisself? Ye tell me I am th’ selfish one? Aye, the world circles ’round poor wee Lena, an’ ain’t nothin’ else matters, not even though m’best friend broke both ’is legs savin’ me! ’Tis all ’bout you! Get out! Leave me alone!”
Her mouth hanging open, she stared at him, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Then, with a sob that wrenched its way out of her chest, she whirled and ran for the door.
With an identical sob that felt as painful as it sounded, he dropped back down to the straw, sure that his cup of misery had overflowed.
He’d said unforgivable things to her. She would—no one would—ever forgive him, ever trust him again. The moment Amily found out what he had said, she would hate him forever. Everyone would hate him.
And rightly. He was destroying everything around him, as surely as if he was running about the Collegium with a knife, slashing everything he cared about to ribbons.
Maybe that awful thing that had brushed up against his mind wasn’t from outside; maybe it had been from inside him!
Maybe that wild rumor was true—and there was something hateful, malicious inside him! Maybe it—this thing that was the real Mags—had broken out for just a second, and he had seen and felt what he really was inside!
Blindly he ran for the door, and just as blindly tore down the path to his room. He stumbled and fell several times, picked himself up without a thought and kept running. He raced past the accusing eyes of the other Companions and into his room and slammed the door behind himself, locking it.
Then he dropped to the floor, arms wrapped around his chest, sobbing silently again. His eyes swelled and burned, his chest ached, his throat was so choked he could scarcely breathe. All he could think about was what he had said to Lena—what she had said to him. What he had done to Dallen.
No matter that he had destroyed his own life. He’d also destroyed Lena’s and Dallen’s.
He jumped as an angry pounding on his door startled him.
“Mags! Mags! Answer me! Answer me, you right bastard!”
It was Bear.
“Come out of there, you coward! Get out here so I can pound you! I’m going to whip you like the mad dog you are!”
Of course it was Bear.
“Who else, what else are you going to ruin, eh?” he shouted furiously, pounding with what sounded like both fists on the door. “Who’s next? Who else are you going to betray? You’ve already destroyed Dallen! Dallen’s probably never going to walk again without pain, much less ride a circuit! What kind of Companion can’t ride a circuit? And you sent Lena into a state where all she can do is cry! You couldn’t even bother to lift a finger to save me from what my family is going to do to me, you selfish bastard! Who else are you going to destroy? Gennie? Amily? The King?”
There it was. Bear believed it too. And if Bear believed it—it had to be true.
“You don’t belong here!” Bear screamed. “You don’t deserve a Companion! You don’t deserve to be a Trainee! Why don’t you go crawl back into your hole in the ground where you came from?”
Why indeed?
Bear was right. He didn’t belong here. He was a blight. An infection. An animal, a mad, dangerous animal. He shouldn’t be around decent folks.
The Foreseers were right.
Bear pounded and pounded on the door, yelling, but Mags wasn’t listening anymore. He was kneeling on the floor, his arms wrapped around his chest, sobbing and rocking, sobbing and rocking, until Bear finally gave up and went away.
Mags’ mind ran around and around in circles, like a mouse trapped in the bottom of a water jar. The candle in his lantern burned down, then out, and he remained where he was on the floor, still curled up around his pain.
There was nothing he could do. There was no way to make any of this right again. All he would continue to do would be to make things worse.
No wonder Nikolas had “disappeared.” He must have been the first to realize just what a bad lot Mags was. Maybe his parents hadn’t been bandits after all, but everything else that Master Cole had said about him was right. He was bad blood, not worth anything.
The best thing he could do right now would be to die—
But no, Dallen was still bonded to him. If he died, in the condition that Dallen was in now, Dallen would probably die along with him.
But Dallen could re-Choose. He knew that was possible. It didn’t happen often, and usually only when a Herald died, but it could happen. Tylendel’s Companion had repudiated him, and presumably had been intending to re-Choose.
Dallen could surely do the same.
And he, Mags, could force the issue.
Yes, that would be the very best thing that he could do. In fact, it was the only honorable thing left for him to do.
And that was where his mind finally stopped, frozen. With the conviction that this was the only possible answer to what he had done. And so he remained, sleepless, curled on the cold floor, in the dark, until at last the first light of dawn filtered in through the window.
