I gasp, and, to my disgust, feel the tears pooling in my eyes. He wants to kill me.
He knows what I have seen, and he draws out his dagger then and there. Oh God, I think, as I feel the panic rising in my throat, he's going to kill me. And I can see it. My hair is sticky, stained by the blood dripping from my neck. My mouth is open slightly, an expression of surprise on my features. My skin is deathly pale, and my glittering green eyes gaze unseeingly at something I do not know. And I realise that I am slowly becoming my mother, the blood fading at the neck, a wound fresh in the stomach, the nose longer, cheeks pinker, lips closed.
"Gemma, I-"
"Don't. Get away from me." I flail about desperately, trying to find a weapon with which to protect myself. How could he have kissed me and held me like that, all the while wanting me dead? How could he?
"Gemma, I don't want you dead. I never did. But you are a danger. To yourself. To others. To everyone and everything we know. It was my task."
Me. Dead. Lying, perhaps, with a stabbed heart, broken neck, slit throat. Perhaps they will find arsenic in my stomach, or water in my lungs. Perhaps they won't find me at all.
"Gemma." He is on top of me now, and I find I have nothing to protect myself with. My eyes are wide with terror, my lips parting only to emit the slightest whimper, and he holds the knife under my ribcage once more, and leans down, and kisses me hard, oh so hard, my body pressed against the wall with his weight, the knife, still there, pressed sharply against my skin, his other hand on my waist, on my back, on my leg. I give up trying to escape and sink into the kiss, revelling in the softness of his mouth and the warmth of his skin. I love him, and he is going to kill me.
I can feel his salty tears on my tongue, mingling with the sweetness of his breath, and I fall gently onto the bed, and he sits up, and by now the magic has begun to take hold. I had warded it off, with my shock and my surprise, but now it was back, flooding me, flooding my eyes. So what if he wants to kill me, just let me stay with him forever, floating in a soft cotton world of smoke and mirrors, illusions and fantasy, lies and stories and betrayal and love.
Such love.
Yet such betrayal.
I feel the knife against my skin, and breathe deeply, look up through the shimmering lights and see him, his face swimming in front of me, the eyes twinkling and troubled and broken, the hair falling in spirals around his face. My words are but a murmur, a dare.
"Go on. Do it."
He presses it against me even harder, and I feel the slit in my chemise.
"I wouldn't play that game if I were you."
I am incensed by his sudden change of behaviour. He is now nothing but cold, hard, harsh Kartik, the Kartik that I fear and despise. But I cannot move, pinned down by his weight. The magic is ready to explode inside of me if I don't take the risk, jump the gulf, feel alive, be alive.
"Kartik – please!"
"Do you want to die, Miss Doyle?" His voice is mocking and cool, sounding so much like Felicity that I hate her for it as well.
"Get off me, please, please, you have to!" My voice is growing weaker, the magic ready to pull me under. I use every bit of strength I have to prise one arm out from underneath his body and pull him down for another kiss. And as I do that the knife is plunged into my side, and I fill his mouth with the scream.