I focused hard on the bond, on her mind. I couldn’t take the magic exactly, but I could take the darkness it brought on. It was what I’d been doing for a while now, I realized. Every time I’d worried and wished she’d calm down and fight dark feelings, she had—because I was taking it all from her. I was absorbing it, just as Anna had done for St. Vladimir. It was what Adrian had seen when the darkness jumped from her aura to mine. And this—this abuse of spirit, using it to maliciously harm another and not for self-defense, was bringing the worst side effects of all in her. It was corrupting and
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