Page 147 of When the Sky Breaks

“Every second,” I said. “Gave her to my da once we got back to the house after she’d passed, so I could come sit with you.”

“You think she was happy?” Sorcha murmured, fingers raking through the soil. “I know she wasn’t here long. But was she scared?”

“I don’t think so, love,” I said, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “I think she knew we cared. I think she knew we’d tried. And I think she knew we were keeping her as safe as we could.”

“Even though the world had other plans,” Sorcha said.

“Even though,” I agreed.

At sunset, I insisted we go home. The last thing we needed was Sorcha getting sick again. And the temperature dropped precipitously after dark here.

She still didn’t speak to Ansel, Da, Cavan, or Kadish when we got back. But she made eye contact. She ate what Da put in front of her. And she talked to me. Not much. Not like she had when it was just the two of us in the churchyard. But she spoke.

And that was enough for now.

The days blurred as Ansel dutifully ran the Court, trying to keep Sorcha’s incapacity from stirring up concern and unrest. Cavan still spent every morning at the barn, cried each night at dinner, but also sweetly tried to find small, insignificant ways to improve everyone’s inevitably awful day. Sorcha was still weak from blood loss, sleeping half the day, clinging to me even while she was fully awake now. I couldn’t fault her. I didn’t mind. It was certainly an improvement.

Then one morning Sorcha stumbled out of bed before I could help her, eyes scrunched closed, hands trembling—from fear, rage, grief, or pain, I couldn’t be sure—finding the door by feel. She made for the kitchen in just her nightdress, fabric clinging to her still-swollen belly. I hurried after.

Sorcha planted both hands on the table, straightened up, then looked Kadish dead in the face and said, “I can’t see out of my left eye at all today. And since I woke up my head feels like someone’s driving a spike through it. Fix it.”

Kadish spent days documenting symptom patterns, asking Sorcha dozens of questions every hour. The vision in her left eye was variable. Some days she could barely make out light and shadow, on others things were just blurry. And still others? Her vision flickered. That was usually a harbinger of pain.

And the pain was debilitating.

I’d watched Sorcha fight ghosts through a hundred and five fever, but this struck her down like a bolt from the heavens. She’d curl up with me in bed, blankets slung over the windows to block out the light, and stay like that for hours. Any attempt at food came immediately back up. So I just rubbed her back and stayed with her. She said the pressure along her spine helped, if only a little.

After a week of trial and error, Kadish finally gave us his official prognosis.

“Any damage to your optic nerve is likely permanent,” he said. “From the oleander.”

“And the pain?” Sorcha asked, curled against my side on one of the dining room benches, thick blanket around her shoulders, nursing a mug of sage and lavender tea Cavan had handed her earlier. Today, she’d told me, wasn’t a bad one. She had some colors, not all of them, and nothing was flickering.

“We’ll find a treatment,” Kadish said.

“So that’s staying too?” Sorcha asked.

“You did survive what I’m fairly sure was an assassination attempt,” Kadish put in, “so these being the only negative ramifications is actually rather impressive.”

Seventy-Two

Sorcha

It was late one night and I couldn’t sleep. The air felt too humid and too still. My head was throbbing. My left eye had greyed out then started flickering. And my belly? Felt wrong. Hollow but not yet flat again. I hated it. And it was distracting.

“Neal, the air here is wrong,” I muttered, rolling over and trying to cuddle in closer.

“Love, just sleep,” he mumbled. “You won’t notice the air if you sleep.”

“My head hurts,” I added, pressing my face into his arm, “and my eye is acting strange again. And I miss having a baby in my belly instead of just . . . whatever all this is.”

That got his attention. Neal pushed himself upright and fumbled for the candle.

“No lamp!” I exclaimed. “Head. Eye. Remember? No lamp.”

Neal leaned back and complied.

“I miss her too,” he said gently.