I pressed my lips to Percy’s knuckles. Set his hand on his chest and stood on legs that ached from sitting on hardwood for hours. Lucian’s hand hovered at the small of my back as he steered me to his office where the first aid kit sat on his desk beside a glass of water he’d already poured.
He prepared this while I’d been sitting with Percy, knowing I wouldn’t leave willingly, knowing he’d have to give me a practical reason instead of telling me to rest.
The room was dim.
Dawn light filtered through the curtained window. He closed the door behind us.
It felt too small for the silence. My dress was ruined. Blood on the hem, the shoulder torn where Hudson had grabbed me, dirt ground into the fabric from the forest floor. My hands were still shaking. Clenching them into fists didn’t help.
The trembling migrated to my arms, my shoulders, my jaw.
A wolf.
Tonight I’d seen a wolf. A massive black wolf with storm gray eyes that I recognized from the memory fragment from before.
I knew that wolf. I’d touched his fur, cleaned his wounds.
“Are you hurt?” Lucian leaned against his desk, arms crossed. He nodded toward the first aid kit. “Sit. Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“The bruises on your throat say otherwise.”
I touched my neck and flinched. The skin was tender where Hudson’s fingers had dug in, and I knew without looking that the marks would be purple by noon.
“Sit down, Mira.” He says with a patient but exhausted voice.
“I don’t need to sit.”
He opened the first aid kit, pulling out an antiseptic and gauze. Set them on the desk with careful, deliberate movements. “Your wrist is swelling. Let me wrap it.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You flinched when you touched your own neck. Let me see.”
“I said I’m fine, Lucian.”
He held the gauze out to me. I didn’t take it. The shaking in my hands had spread to my whole body now, a constant vibration that I couldn’t will away, and reaching for that gauze meant admitting I was hurt and admitting I was hurt meant admitting that my plan had been reckless and stupid and could have gotten Percy killed.
“Drink the water, then.” He pushed the glass toward me.
I didn’t touch it.
Lucian’s jaw tightened. He set the gauze down, picking up the antiseptic instead. “At least let me clean the cuts on your hands. You carved trail markers into trees with a dagger. Your palms are shredded.”
I shoved my hands behind my back. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being calm or patient. Stop acting as if this is just another problem you need to manage.” My voice cracked and I hated it. Hated the way the words splintered on their way out, exposingthe guilt underneath. “Percy is lying hurt because I dragged all of you to that festival.”
“Mira...”
“And now you’re standing here with your first aid kit and your calm voice and pretend everything’s under control because that’s what you do. You control things.” My eyes burned. “But you can’t control this. Percy got hurt and it’s my fault.”
Lucian set the antiseptic down. His hands gripped the edge of the desk behind him.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. Still measured. But the cracks of his exhaustion were forming now. “You have blood on your dress and are shaking so hard you can’t hold your own hands still, and you won’t let me help you.”
