I pick at a loose thread on my sleeve. “I feel off.”
Hart leans his chin on my shoulder. “You’re exhausted.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not weak. Not tired. Incomplete.” The word tastes strange, as if it doesn’t belong to me.
“Explain.”
I press a hand to my chest. “There’s a piece of me somewhere else. Like when you bite into a pastry and realize all the filling is missing.” I continue, softer now. “I came back wrong, didn’t I?”
Hart doesn’t answer as he weighs my words. I don’t mistake it for indifference or creepy sleeping. “Your soul isn’t whole,” he whispers.
The words land heavy, like rocks hitting my chest.
“What does that mean?”
“It means something of you didn’t return.”
My stomach drops. “Does that mean I’m not me? I need all of me to survive. Parts aren’t good where I’m concerned. Should I file something in the celestial lost and found? Nobody is going to want a bit of me. They’d probably pay me to take it away. I bet it’s causing chaos.”
His thumb rubs a slow circle on my wrist. “More like a piece of your spirit is tethered elsewhere.”
My throat tightens. “Theo.”
Hart nods once. “He isn’t just missing,” he says. “He has part of you. And you have part of him. Always have, long before you did the impossible and thwarted narratives, kings, queens, and Idols.”
A strange warmth flickers in my chest. “I thought I just missed him.”
“You do,” Hart says. “But it’s more than that.”
I swallow.
The lake makes a small sound. Not a splash. Not a ripple. Just… a shift. Like something turning over in its sleep. I hate that sound.
I pick at the thread on my sleeve harder until it snaps. “What if it’s not a tether?” I say quietly. “What if it’s a tear?” Hart’s hand stills on my wrist. “In fabric,” I continue, because apparently I am incapable of stopping once a metaphor begins.“If you tear something, the edges fray. They don’t sit nicely. They don’t behave.”
“You’re not fraying,” he says.
“That’s generous.” I look down at my hands. They look like mine. Slightly scraped. A faint scar from when I tried to duel a sentient teapot. Perfectly functional chaos hands. “But I feel… less. Like if someone pushed too hard, I might go straight through myself.”
Hart shifts so he can see my face properly.
“You’re solid,” he says, relocating my hand against his chest. His heart thuds steady and sure beneath my palm.
“That is romantic.”
“I’m not trying to be romantic.”
“Well, try harder.”
He almost smiles. Almost. And that’s worse. Because Hart only almost smiles when something matters.
I curl against him, not removing my hand, letting the vibration ground me. Only it doesn’t, because it only highlights the problem. Mine feels off rhythm. Not wrong, but not complete.
“Is that why I can’t quite settle?” I ask. “Why the lake feels louder than it should? Why I keep expecting something to answer when I don’t speak?”
“Perhaps.”
The word is soft.
