Her sister.
“What else do you remember?” I ask, quietly.
Her voice breaks. “She was younger. She liked when I braided her hair. I think she used to sneak into my room at night… if there were storms.”
Tears well in her eyes and, before I can reach out to comfort her, the air shifts.
A drop of water falls from the ceiling.
Then another.
Then a slow, steady drizzle fills the room, though no storm rages outside. Water pools at her feet, shimmering faintly with light. Every droplet carries emotion — grief and love and the ache of remembering.
I wade in, my boots soaking, and take her face in my hands, thankful for the drills my old sergeant put me though and that my shields can be activated in an instant. She’d be upset if we tried to go to bed and her mattress was sodden.
“Casie, look at me.”
Her lips tremble. “It hurts.”
Annemarie sits still, eyes wide.
“I know. I’m so sorry, love.” I brush a tear from her cheek with my thumb.
She leans into me then, her forehead pressed to my chest. The air smells of rain and longing, and I swear I can feel her heart beating against my ribs. Just two rhythms finding their way back to each other after too long apart.
I should have seen it coming.
It started with a nightmare. Ash woke screaming, sheets twisted, her hands faintly glowing. The air is heavy with heat, the faint crackle of static electricity is raising the hair on my arms.
I had been reading on the couch, unable to settle. Maybe this is why.
I’m across the room before I can consciously think about it. “Casie?—”
She sits up, eyes wild. “He was here,” she gasps. “Brett. He— he touched?—”
I don’t even think. The temperature in the room spikes, the candle on the nightstand bursts into flames. I grab it, snuffing it out with my hand, using the lick of pain to focus.
“Look at me.” I say, hoarsely. “He’s not here. I am. You’re safe.”
But her magick doesn’t believe me. It surges from her palms, red and white, searing, flickering like firelight reflecting in her tears. The books on the dresser rattle. A glass cracks.
I catch her wrists gently, not bothering with a shield. I have to trust that she knows me enough to not hurt me. Ineed her to use me to ground herself. “Casie, breathe. It’s your anger. Not his.”
Her eyes finally focus on me. Terrified, furious, burning with something too bright and not human. “It feels like it’s going to eat me alive.”
I smile, sadly. “That’s because you’ve been locking it up too long.”
She exhales, a shudder running through her, and the flames dim. The heat fades to a warm glow, like embers cooling after a storm.
I don’t let go.
Finally she asks, “Will you hold me?”
“Of course.” I climb into bed, wrapping an arm around her stomach and tugging her toward me, pressing her back against my chest. Her breath evens out eventually, but sleep is a long time in coming for me.
When I wake up, she’s sitting on the couch, wrapped in one of my hoodies, the fabric all but swallowing her whole. I sit across from her, elbows on my knees, watching her stare into a candle she had lit.
“When you said it before, that I’ve done this… what did you mean?”
