“Easy,” Alistair hisses. “Everyone, take a deep breath.” His voice is weird, but I don’t have time to think about it before I’m sucking in air through my nose, holding it for two seconds, and blowing it out.
“Don’t compel us, asshole,” Ciprian snaps.
“I’m only trying to help,” Alistair hisses through clenched teeth. “If you would all shut up long enough to let your blood cool, you would see that.”
Ciprian wants to argue—it’s written all over his face—but he keeps his mouth closed. I inhale again—this time of my own volition—and hold it before releasing the air. It helps a little, but I’m nowhere near calm.
My eyes flicker shut, and S’lach’s hateful stare is waiting for me.
Footsteps clack against the stone floor. I open my eyes, but I’m too late. Celine is already disappearing down the same hallway we watched her younger self sprint toward in the echo. Her bladed wings scrape against the walls as she walks away.
She’s leaving me behind.
It’s one time too many. I swallow and follow her. If she can’t do this alone, then she won’t have to. I’ll face it with her, no matter what it takes.
I find her in her mother’s favorite sitting room.
Like the rest of the house, the room is white and sterile, but it wasn’t always this way. When we were young, shades of pink and purple filtered through the large stained glass window overlooking the courtyard. We would play in the colors, plum light dancing off Celine’s hair while a magenta streak bisected the grin on her face. The outer edge of the window was engraved with inspirational runes, and Valenara would often mumble the words—half song, half prayer—as she stared into the distance.
The window was the focal point of the room, but it’s gone now, covered up so thoroughly it’s as if it never existed to begin with.
“What did he do?” Celine’s hands ball at her sides. Trembling, she eyes the wall, and I curse myself for not knowing what to say to make it better.
Valenara lives on in the estate through her echoes, but S’lach obviously tried to erase her. Should I push Celine to accept that? She needs to prepare for the duel.How can I fix this for her?
“Perhaps the window remains,” I say softly. It’s the opposite of what I intended, but it feels right. When her bladed wings shudder, I move to her side before I can overthink. “Let’s fix it.”
Her gaze flickers to mine. “He walled over the window. We’ll do damage.”
“Who cares?” I allow a hint of the vitriol I’ve carried since being dragged into S’lach’s dungeon to escape through my voice.
Celine’s eyes widen. She looks at the wall, and then back at me, as if she can’t decide which she finds more out of place. “Come on, Celine. This is your estate. Do you want to keep that wall?”
“I fucking hate it,” she snaps.
I grab her hand and squeeze. “Then it’s gone.” I tug her over to the wall, trace the subtle off-white pattern to the edge, and poke around the seam. Celine watches me examine the wall for a full minute in silence before something in her snaps. She drives her elbow into the plaster, and it goes right through, sending up a small plume of white dust.
“It’s thin,” she says, wiggling her elbow around until her eyes light up. “I feel the glass, though. It’s still there.”
I release her free hand, and we go to work, punching small holes in the fake wall and yanking the chalky covering away from the window in large chunks. White dust fills the air, coating Celine’s hair and eyelashes.
“I’ll start at the top,” I say. “You do the bottom, and we’ll meet in the middle.”
Celine grunts and tears at the lower sections of the wall like she’s possessed.
I match her enthusiasm, imagining the room as it should be and ignoring the sting in my knuckles, fingernails, and palms as Itear through the wall. We could get tools and work more efficiently, but this is better. Truthfully, I’m not sure I can stop.
Because this isn’t about the wall.
It’s about everything we’ve tried and failed to control over the years. The cruelty, the separations—they’re part of a reality we hated but were powerless to change. Maybe if we tear it all down, something new can rise up in its place.
“Almost there,” Celine says. I glance down at her, and my heart flips at the naked hope on her face. Her eyes, painfully dry while facing her abuser, are brimming with tears. They coat her lower lashes, and as I watch, one breaks free and carves a path through the white dust coating her cheeks.
She yanks the final piece of wall away, her chest rising and falling as she pants.
It’s not a neat job. The edges are jagged, and there are clumps of heavy-duty adhesive stuck to the panes. The colors are back, though, shining through the dirty, forgotten window and bathing Celine’s face in lavender light.
She stares out the window at the courtyard below, tears rolling down her cheeks.
