Chapter 49
Maeve
“Maeve,” Isis hisses against my skin. “Maeve, are you okay?”
I want to answer her, but I’m too out of breath. I lean against the wall and slide down it so I’m sitting on a stair, hands and knees shaking.
“I’m . . . just . . . a bit dizzy,” I finally say.
And I keep seeing Severin, keep hearing him whisper, I’m sorry, Maeve. But he didn’t try to stop me. He let me walk right out of that office, like maybe I don’t mean to him what he means to me.
“I’m going to get help,” Isis announces, already uncoiling herself from around my neck and slithering out from under my chunky scarf and down my arm.
“No, I’m fine,” I say, but Isis doesn’t listen. She slithers up the stairs at a surprising speed, leaving me sitting there in the stairwell, my heart racing, breath still coming in short gasps.
Did I really just break up with Severin? The thought feels almost ridiculous, because how could I break up with someone that I may never have actually been with in the first place? Saying you love someone doesn’t mean you belong to them, or that they belong to you.
But it hurts all the same, down deep in my bones, so much worse than the muscle and body aches brought on by this stupid, stupid cold.
I’m still sitting there, trying to get up the strength to move, when the sound of footsteps on stone reaches me.
Boots tap out a hurried pace on the stairs, and as I look up, Raelan comes into view, followed closely by Alina and Yuki.
Isis is coiled around Alina’s neck, and if I weren’t feeling so terrible, I’d smile.
Alina was so afraid of Isis when they first met. To see them like this now reminds me of how much we’ve all grown and how far we’ve all come since our first year together.
“What happened?” Raelan says, coming to kneel on the stairs beside me. His brow is furrowed, his dark eyes narrowed in concern.
“N-nothing,” I say, still winded. “I just . . . got a bit dizzy. But I can make it—”
“No.” Raelan’s voice leaves no room for argument. “You’re sick. You’ve pushed yourself too hard.”
Alina waits a few stairs up from us, arms crossed, her expression a mix of worry and simmering anger. I try to smile at her, but she just shakes her head. “You’re going straight to bed,” she says. “And if you’re not better by morning, we’re taking you to the infirmary.”
“I’m fine,” I say, reaching to brace a hand on the wall.
But before I can get to my feet, Raelan is slipping his arms under me, one beneath my knees and one around my back, and lifting me as though I weigh nothing at all.
I let out a breath of surprise as he hefts me into his arms, then curl against him, my fingers finding the fabric of his soft black tunic without me meaning for them to.
I close my eyes as he starts to climb the stairs to room NT33, the sway of my body in his arms trying to lull me to sleep.
When we get to the dorm room, Alina hurriedly opens the door, and Lyra and Poppy are waiting for us on the other side. They say something, but I’m halfway asleep already, and their words don’t register.
Raelan carries me up the stairs to our loft, then eases me gently onto my bed.
“Thank you,” I whisper. Before he can pull away, I snag his sleeve with my fingers and open my bleary eyes. “I’ve never told you this,” I say, “but I think you’re pretty great.”
He lets out a huff of laughter. “You’re pretty great too,” he says, then pulls gently away from me.
Alina appears beside him, face still pinched in worry. Isis slithers down her arm and onto the bed, where she quickly coils herself against me, wedging her head up alongside my neck.
“I’m worried about you,” she hisses.
“I’m fine,” I say.
Alina crosses her arms. “You are to stay in this bed until we say otherwise. And you’re going to eat and drink whatever Poppy makes for you. Understood?”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious, Maeve. You have got to take better care of yourself. You’ve got finals and your fellowship board demonstration coming up. You can’t miss that.”
I groan and turn my head into my pillow. “Don’t remind me.”
“Come on,” Raelan says, reaching out to drape a hand along Alina’s waist. “Let’s let her sleep.”
Alina looks like she wants to give me another lecture, but then she lets out a breath, her tense shoulders drooping. “Try to sleep,” she says. “We’ll bring food and tea up in a bit.”
I nod, eyes already closing.
My eyes are still closed when I hear Raelan and Alina walk away, their boots thumping softly down the stairs from our loft.
And I keep my eyes closed as they fill with tears.
Because in my chest, my connection with Severin burns, even though I try to push it away. And I have a sneaking suspicion that no amount of rest or tea is ever going to help it.
I wake up sometime later to Poppy and Lyra bringing me tea and vegetable soup from the dining hall.
I don’t feel like eating, but Lyra forces a few spoons down me before finally giving up; she’s kind of scary in mother-hen mode, and if she does choose to have children one day, I think I’m going to fear for them.
Poppy is softer, as usual. She sits beside me, hand on my leg where it’s buried under the blankets. When I finish the peppermint tea she made me, she says, “If you need anything, just ring your bell.” She nods toward a little bell she put on my bedside table, and I smile. That is so Poppy.
“I will,” I say around the roughness in my throat.
She and Lyra leave then, and I turn over in bed, trying to find a better position. But no matter which way I turn or how I arrange my blankets and pillows, I can’t get comfortable.
Because apart from my cold, the real pain is coming from inside me, right beneath my sternum, where my connection to Severin aches. It thrums in time with my heart, reminding me it’s there with every breath I take.
With a groan, I curl deeper into my blankets, pulling them up to my chin as I press my face into my pillow. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to will myself to fall asleep. It’s so much easier to sleep through pain than it is to be awake and have to face it with every second that ticks by.
I toss and turn some more. Isis eventually gets fed up with me and slithers away, probably so I won’t squish her with all my thrashing.
Time passes in hazy moments of sleep and wakefulness. At some point, the girls come up to the loft, each settling into their own bed and drawing the curtains so they can sleep.
I’m drifting in that liminal sick state when there’s a sudden tug in my chest, sharp and impossible to ignore.
My eyes open in the darkness, and I suck in a shallow breath as a sensation washes over me: heat tickling my skin, the distant crackle of a fire, something bitter and metallic at the back of my tongue.
And I know that it’s him.
My hand inches toward my chest, curling into the soft fabric of my night shirt, which Poppy insisted I put on when she brought me tea earlier.
Severin is awake. I know it without a doubt, know it like I know my own magic and the pulse of it beneath my skin.
Restlessness—his restlessness—seeps through the connection. It feels like he’s pacing, and a rough thirst claws at the back of my throat.
I turn my face into my pillow and cough, trying not to wake the others.
Then another wave of emotion washes over me, like rainwater from a black sky: Frustration. Barely contained restraint. A loneliness so potent that it makes everything inside me feel hollow.
Without me calling on it, my magic manifests.
Sparks dance along my skin, and when I lift a hand, I have to wince away from the brightness of the white-blue electricity leaping between my fingers.
Immediately, I stifle the magic, sending it away.
It hasn’t acted like this since I was a young witch first learning how to control my powers. And it’s all because of him.
I thought distance was supposed to kill this connection between us. Severin hasn’t fed on me again—and now he never will—yet the thread tying me to him still lingers, raw and taut but there nonetheless.
And I know he feels it too.
Outside, the winter wind howls, rattling the window in our loft. One of the girls sighs, and another turns over in bed. It’s like every other night we’ve spent in this dorm together.
But inside me, everything feels different. And I don’t know what to do about it.
I turn over again, pulling my blankets up, tangling them in my trembling fingers.
As another faint echo of Severin’s hunger trickles through the connection, a thought hits me.
What if this never goes away? What if he’s wrong and we’ve already established a permanent connection, only to wound it the way that we have?
I swallow hard, trying to banish the phantom taste of blood in my mouth.
Closing my eyes, I try to drift off, but sleep doesn’t come. Only my storm and Severin’s suffering, still lingering in my blood.