I arrive home, and I'm shaking.

It doesn't stop as I shower off what I'm pretty certain is another woman's cum.

I climb into bed, and I'm shaking.

I can't get it to stop.

I wake up and my body trembles violently. And, more than ever, I'm terrified.

Of myself.

Of Desdemona.

Of everything.

I do something I've never done and I take the week off work. I send an email. I can't risk people hearing the way my voice carries an uncertain quaver now.

The Decay is quiet, too. It hasn't stirred once. I tried the expulsion incantation when I got home.

The real one.

It didn't work.

I can feel the Decay. It's no longer foreign. It feels like my skin. It doesn't crawl in my gut. Its tendrils stretch the length of my body. I feel them wrapping around my spine and into my brain.

I am the Decay.

Whatever Desdemona did to me means that it won't be getting free.

This should bring me peace. That was why I did this in the first place. That was what I wanted, but now?

Now I'm just scared. I'm trapped, with something inside of me that I can't fight — or control.

I'm afraid I'll hurt someone and be unable to stop.

I'm afraid, more than anything, it'll be Kam.

I touch the empty space in the bed next to me, where Rory would sleep if he wasn't traveling. I may not love him the way I did — or, maybe the way I ever did — but I don't want him to get hurt, either.

I should tell someone.

But how can I tell anyone about this? Nowhere is safe anymore.

Alicia would go into damage control. She'd marshal the Guild's resources like a sword, and skewer Kam with it. She'd ruin Kam, and I don't want that.

Lindsey doesn't have the Guild's resources, but she'd go on the warpath all the same. And I can't protect Kam from that.

Rory... I can't tell him.

And that's the list. That's everyone I could even consider a friend. I haven't talked to Amal in years. Everyone else in my life knows me as Magisorcerer Tiana. I'm something close to a mythical being to a lot of them.

I walk into rooms and people know me. It taints every interaction.

It's hell.

I check my phone out of habit, and see a message from Kam.

K: What the fuck was that?

I wish I could tell her. The truth is so simple that I can't even bring myself to type back "I don't know." Because I know what will follow is "I'm sorry." And "I made a mistake."

And Kam doesn't deserve that.

Nobody deserves me. The mess I am. The damage I am. I am broken in ways they can't even understand.

And, even now, I'm so scared of anyone knowing. I wish I could get help.

I wish I knew how to get help. But I have nothing, and nobody.

And GirlCon is in four days from now, no matter what.

I curl in on myself, hugging my phone to my chest. I can feel Kam's fury and confusion through the screen like it's a hot coal pressed against my sternum, but it feels better than the cold.

When did I get so cold? Why can't I ever, ever be warm?

Why can't I stop fucking things up?

I wake the next day. Three days to go. Rory is still gone.

I barely managed to eat. I spent yesterday crying. I drink a glass of water, then a glass of rosé, and then a glass of rosé, and then a glass of rosé.

It fills me with a different, false warmth that I think I need right now.

It helps me.

Two days left.

Nobody comes to visit me anymore. The last visitor I had was Kam, disrupting Rory and my wedded "bliss" and reminding me that there was something better in the world than the cold.

How stupid I was to wrap myself in it, and think that it's what I wanted.

I don't.

I wish...

I wish I could take it back. All of it. That stupid kiss. Why couldn't I have just been honest? I'm so good at it when it's my job.

But with Kam?

Why does that scare me more than anything else in the world?

And I know the answer. It's because of three words I didn't think I could say.

"I love you."

Today, I make it to the couch. I watch whatever is on. It's there just to make noise and distract me from my busy mind until I'm so tired I pass out.

I order more rosé, too. We've run out. I make sure the bottle gets into the trash as fast as possible. I don't want to leave evidence.

One day left.

What am I even doing here? Why should I even keep breathing?

And then it's GirlCon.

And I'm smiling, sitting at a booth with a line that's been capped since before the hall opened. I sign autographs.

They tell me about their lives. I make small talk. None of it lands.

Someone comes along to usher me to the next stop on my schedule. I haven't even prepared for whatever it is. Normally I know the person's name, but today I just ask for the name of the event.

"It's... 'Perspectives On Magisorcerers'. It's the one with, y'know..." My guide leans in, "the monster."

I falter for half a step.

But no.

This is good. This could be good. I can just... get through it. I can be fake with these people, and make jokes, and only Kam will know.

She always seems to know.

About who I am.

And what I want.

Exactly the right places to hit to make me whimper.

And maybe.

Just maybe.

Maybe if I play this right, I can feel a moment of that true warmth I've been missing. Her warmth.

The kind that could calm me down, even now.

One last time, I'll do what I've been doing since this all started: I'll take what I need because I'm selfish.

And then I'll go.