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“I’m still trying to figure out what it is you’re doing here.”

He chuckles again as if it were a rhetorical statement.

I give Sabil a click of my tongue and we start off.

THIRTY-NINETinman

I wake on the sticky floor of the Corn Hole to a wave of emotion so intense, I roll onto all fours and vomit.

I feel like I’m shaking, but my hands are steady.

My heart is thumping loudly in my head.

I rock back and sit on my ass, my back propped against the hot stone surround of the fireplace.

And then the grief hits me.

Gabriel.

I’m crying before I can process it all, and I bury my face in my hands.

I want the world to swallow me up.

My heart has filled the hole in my chest, but the loss of Gabriel has dug it back out, wrung it dry.

I want this feeling to go away. I want to be empty again.

My heartbeat sounds like a drum in my ears.

I forgot what it was to feel; it’s been so long.

I forgot how emotion sinks into bone and makes you physically ill.

And yet …

I can mourn him.

My perfect little brother, the peaceful, kind, compassionate little brother who just wanted to be useful.

I should have done more to save him.

I should have burned down the West’s castle to free him.

I should have stormed the Emerald Palace to take him back from the Wizard.

He should have been free.

Grief seizes me around the throat and burns in my chest in the place where my heart now rests.

Finally, I can mourn all of it.

I sink against the floor and give in to it.

FORTYDorothy

As Sabil trots up to the trees, she starts to neigh loudly as if trying to get my attention.

I slow her and give her a pat. “I can get off here,” I tell her. “You don’t have to get any closer.”