“Seren and I have only just met,” he interrupts gently. “And it’s… complicated.”
Well, that’s… surprising.
Especially coming from Mr. ‘You’re my mate’.
Maybe he’s already decided the whole mate thing isn’t going to work out, that he’s already sick of me.
I don’t know what to think, don’t know what to make of the fact that even as he says it, he doesn’t let go of my hand.
Soleil’s not buying it. She looks from Callum to me and back again before throwing her hands up in exasperation.
“Alright. Fine. Whatever you say.”
She crosses to her workbench and pours a deep blue, viscous liquid into a series of glass vials.
Even though I wasn’t awake for it, I’ve got a feeling it tastes just as bad as it looks and that I’m really, really going to hate it if she tells me—
“Here.” She stoppers the vials and places them into a small leather pouch. “This should last you for the next few days. Drink one morning and night, and you probably won’t need to come back and see me.”
The way she says it, like me coming back to see her would be the worst of all outcomes, puts another lump in my throat.
Not that I blame her.
I nod silently and take the bag.
Goddess, I’m exhausted. Bone-deep exhausted. I could lie down on this table and sleep for hours. Days, maybe, until I don’t feel like I’ve been run over by a truck and had shards of glass dumped down my windpipe and into my chest.
“We need to get you out of here,” Soleil says, picking up the pillow I’d been lying on and handing it to Callum.
Or… not a pillow. A cloak.
Callum’s cloak.
Instead of putting it on, he rests it over one arm before helping me up from the table. When I’m steady on my feet, he drapes it over me and fastens it at my throat. He also picks up my bag from the floor, the same one I’d had with me when I went to Faerie, and slings it over his shoulder.
I’m way too off-balance to take it all in right now.
My sister’s cold hostility.
Callum’s kindness.
Being back in the coven hall after all these years.
The fact that I nearly died today.
It all feels like way, way too much to process, so I do the only thing I can. The thing I’ve been doing since I left here.
I put one foot in front of the other.
I don’t protest when Callum puts a gentle hand in the center of my back and leads me toward the door. I can’t think of anything else to say to Soleil, so I don’t try.
I’ll sort it all out later.
After I’ve slept.
After I’ve had time to replay everything that happened and make sense of it.
I just need some time to figure it all out, some time to rest and to—
