My breaths come quick and fast. They’re coming too fast. I see spots.
The spots expand, looking more like splotches.
Shit. I’ve let it sink in too deep. I need to get up and go scare Alistair or something before I pass out. This was stupid.
I lurch to my feet, and the room spins. Groping for the wall to steady myself, I grab the shower curtain by mistake and fall to the floor in a pile of damp, wrinkled vinyl.
I try to get up, then fall back into a useless heap.
This is bad.
I close my eyes, trying to banish the fear, but its grip is too strong. Like vines woven through a crumbling brick wall, the panic doesn’t want to let me go.
Calm down,I tell myself.You’ll be fine if you give yourself time to regroup.
The door swings open. Didn’t I lock it? Three sets of vivid, supernatural eyes stare at me from the tops of their blurry, blob-like bodies. I back up until my head hits the wall.
“What the fuck?” Luca demands.
“Did you hurt him, Alistair?” Celine sounds pissed. On my behalf? Probably not, she’s likely upset I yanked her shower curtain down.
“Of course not,” Alistair snaps “He was fine a halfhour ago.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper, closing my eyes. Trying to focus on them is making me nauseous.
Celine scoffs. “I don’t need magic to know that’s a lie. You two, get out.”
There’s some grumbling, then I hear the door close. When I force one eye open, I see Celine crouching in front of me.
“Sorry,” I mutter, embarrassment joining the fear and magical exhaustion. I don’t want her to see me this way. Fuck, I don’t want anyone seeing me this way.
Is having a panic attack in my crush’s bathroom while trapped in a self-induced fear void my new rock bottom? I have to hope it is.
“Don’t apologize to have something to say—it’s a pathetic human habit,” Celine says, pressing the back of her hand to my forehead. “What’s wrong with you?”
To my absolute horror, a tear squeezes loose from the corner of my right eye and runs down my cheek. I feel it graze every pore. Clearly, I was wrong. I have more rocks to hit on the way down.
“My best friend is in trouble,” I say. “Big trouble. She might not make it through this. I might never see her again, and there’s not a godsdamn thing I can do about it. How can I accept that?”
Celine hums, then wipes my tear away—Another rock. “It’s not often I see someone crying over a friend in the Fringes,” she murmurs.
“That’s their loss. Having a friend is...” I sigh, not sure how to put it into words.
“... One of the best parts about living.” Celine finishes the thought for me. “I would kill dozens of strangers for Imani, no questions asked. If I could buy her a moment’s peace, I would bleed myself dry as payment.”
Exactly.I force my eyes open. “But it hurts.”
“That’s the helplessness, not the friendship.” Celine runs herfingers through my hair absentmindedly, and I shudder. It’s incredible, and I’m starving for her touch. “Why did you collapse? Your body seems okay.”
I tense. We’re treading on shaky ground with this line of questioning. I have to tell her something, though. She’s too smart, and she’s seen too much to be put off by half truths.
“I used too much magic,” I whisper. “The kids were scared, and I pushed too hard.”
“Alistair said you did something that calmed them down. It was an illusion, wasn’t it? Like when you hid us from the angel earlier.”
I nod, seeing no reason to hide that truth from her when she’s already pieced it together.
Celine’s nails scour my scalp, and I curl into her touch like a fucking sapling in search of the sun. If this is another rock on my way down, at least the edges are soft. If that’s pathetic, I can’t bring myself to care.
