Letting out a breath, I spin back?—
Too quickly.
My arm catches the Letter-threader.
The contraption tips.
No, no, no?—
Time slows as I hurl myself off the bed, every muscle bracing hard enough to hurt as my hand shoots out, reaching for the flash of gold as it tips toward the ground below?—
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The golden device hits the floor with a gut-wrenching clatter and the second I see the damage, my stomach drops.
At least half the petals have snapped clean off, the stem hangs bent in the middle, and the flame—gone.
No, no, no.
Scooping up the warm pieces, the metal clicks in my hands as I try forcing the pieces back into place, turning the broken petals over and over as finding the right angle, the right pressure, it’ll somehow work again.
But nothing fits.
I try again anyway, pushing, bending, ignoring the sharp bite of it digging into my fingers.
Still nothing.
Fuck.
Dropping back against the side of the bed, a hopeless breath leaves me as my spine loosens and my shoulders sag with it.
Staring at the broken device, frustration, grief, sorrow—every painful ounce of weakness I’ve tried so hard to keep buried—rushes to the surface so fast it makes me dizzy, and the remainsof the Letter-threader blur behind the sting gathering in my eyes.
Crack.
Another flap of the tent pulls my attention sideways, but this time it’s Ahria slipping inside. She glides straight for Talen’s flight jacket at the end of the bed, claws catching lightly in the leather before she circles once and settles there. Her violet eyes fix on me—hunched on the cold ground with ten twisted, intricate pieces of gold metal trembling in my hands—and I swear one of her brows lifts.
Sniffing back the tears, I drag my arm over my face, the scratchy wool of my sweater soaking up the dampness from my eyes and nose.
Mum would never have done this, sat on the floor crying and losing control like this. She would’ve picked herself up, carried on, found a way through, and I should do the same. I need to.
But the harder I try to pull myself together, the bigger the lump in my throat gets.
Swallowing against it, my jaw clenched until it aches as I refuse to let the tears come, but the pressure only builds, making it harder to pull air into my lungs.
God, Talen warned me that I needed to find a way to let all these feelings out, and he’s right. Because shoving it all down clearly isn’t bloody working anymore. It just keeps building and building until every little thing feels capable of splitting me wide open.
But I can’t afford to just completely fall apart either, not this close to Blood Moon. I need another way to get it out, something I can control.
Gathering the rest of the broken pieces, I place them carefully on the bed behind me before reaching for the pencil and notepad.
Not to write to Talen, not even to make sense of everything that's happened, but just to put some of the noise in my head somewhere else for a while.
For one long breath, I just stare at the blank page, pulse thudding thick behind my eyes, not knowing where to even start, but the second the pencil touches paper, the words come fast and fluid, and once they start, they don’t stop.
“The moon looks so big tonight,”Neeve sighs beside me, her head tipped back in awe. “I’m glad we’re on patrol together. Last week I was stuck up here with one-eyed Lee.”
“In that case, I’m glad it’s you too,” I reply, leaning back against the support pole behind me that holds the dragon warning bell.
