Chapter Fifty-One
The connection snapped, the link between the Diplomat and Fortblanche breaking clean. Abruptly, I found myself standing inside room fifteen, staring at the stoic face of the closed door in front of me.
I surged forward. My fingers grasped for the doorknob before I was abruptly yanked backward, a hand gripping my shoulder and hauling me to the ground.
“Are you insane?” Anais seethed down at me, her meticulous blond updo now a riot of corkscrew curls falling chaotically about her face. She looked messy and frightened—two terms I had never ascribed to her before. “Open that door, and she will strike you dead.”
Her warning had no effect on me. My skull was pounding—with panic as well as the aftereffects of using my Wit.
I’d never strained it so greatly before; it felt as though I were beneath the armchair again, being crushed to death in the turret room.
My mind was a squeezed lemon, all the juice wrung out.
Glass rattling in my lungs, I stood. My ears rang as I took one step, then a second, toward the door, echoing with the rip of the bullet as it left Clio’s gun.
This time, Anais handled me more gently. Stepping in front of me, she placed a single hand on my chest. Her touch was light, barely there, but pathetically, I found I was too weak to resist her. “Sisters three,” she said softly. “You’re devoted—I’ll give you that much.”
Her eyes searched mine, sympathy in them; ashamed, I glanced away. “Let me go.”
“Lovett.” Manon was beside me now, petting my hair. Her touch was cool—it was only then, feeling the winter kiss of her fingers against my neck, that I realized how hot my own skin had become. “She’s right. You’ve overexerted yourself—”
I shook her off, speaking over her. “Let me go!”
“Fine!” With a huff, Anais pulled her arm back.
Lacking her weight to support me, I swiftly tumbled forward, my knees colliding roughly with the ground. My muscles screamed, a swarm of black dots invading my vision; I gritted my teeth to keep back the bile I could feel rising up my throat.
“Crawl to him if you wish,” Anais said from above me. Her tone was harsh—when I glanced up at her, she pressed her lips together and nodded at the door. “Come on, then. You wanted to go—go.”
I knew what she was doing, and I didn’t care. Placing my hands on the floor—my legs had abandoned me, and I could not stand—I heaved myself in the direction of the door.
I love you. Don’t forget it. His words in my mind sounded foreign, like they’d been uttered in another language; even so, I clung to them desperately, driving myself onward.
My breath left me all at once. I’d barely made it a foot before my arms gave out beneath me, the world fading to an endless heap of black.