Chapter 2 #2
We hurry across the foggy parapet without another word, through the open red door, and onto a rickety wooden staircase, surrounded by beams and stone. I’ve never been up here before, and it’s odd how barren the staircase is. I suppose Kyrith must never use it.
Most of the time she just pops up wherever she feels like it. Curiosity burns as I wonder what the space she described as her ‘sanctuary’ will look like.
We don’t make it the whole way up before we come face-to-face with the others.
“Eddy kicked us out,” Jasper explains, as Dakari shoulder-checks me on his way past. “She’s getting Kyrith cleaned up.”
North turns to follow him, asking the obvious follow-up question. “Is she—”
“She’s alive, but not awake.” I can’t read the McKinley heir’s expression because I’m too focused on the slouching blond behind him. “I think she’s fine, but we won’t know for certain until she wakes up.”
Lambert’s steps slow to a stop as he reaches me, leaving the two of us behind as the others trudge downstairs, still discussing what just happened.
“The Arcanaeum hasn’t done anything,” he says dully, the moment they’re out of earshot. “Not a peep since she…”
Now that he mentions it, the building is quiet.
“You think it’s a bad sign?”
No answer.
This. This is what I was afraid of.
Lambert has a huge heart, and Kyrith trampled all over it. When he leans against the straight beam on his left, I mirror his posture, but I don’t follow his gaze back up to the mysterious room above.
“Hey, do you know how to treat a panic attack?”
The question is so out of the blue that I can’t do more than frown at him for several seconds.
“A panic attack? Yeah, I used to get them as a kid.” The curse came with its own ever-present anxiety, and my grandfather had no sympathy.
Lambert forces a tiny smile. “Great. I think I’m having one.”
I gape at him uselessly until he sways slightly, jolting me into action.
“Sit down. Breathe. Feck’s sake, how long have you been feeling like this? No. Don’t answer that. Just breathe in and count to five.”
He obeys, taking up most of the step and forcing me to cram myself into what little space is left beside him.
Does he get panic attacks often? What brought this on? Feck. What am I saying? It’s bleeding obvious who caused it, and she’s lying upstairs having a nap while he suffers.
“Are you counting?” I demand, crouching beside him. “Have you tried naming things you can see, hear, smell, and touch?”
The space is too small. Being boxed in probably isn’t helping.
“What’s that supposed to do?” he asks, confused. “Feels like I can’t breathe anyway.”
“That’s because you stopped counting! In for five, hold it for two, out for seven. Come on.”
I count with him, not because I don’t trust him, but because I wish someone had done the same for me when I was a kid trapped alone in that gloomy old mansion.
Helplessness plagues me for long minutes of counting and breathing.
At first, it feels just as useless as it was back when I was wrestling with the knowledge that what killed my parents was coming for me, too.
I scramble for other ideas, other techniques I found in my books, but the trembling in his shoulders gradually starts to even out.
That’s something.
“She just broke,” Lambert eventually says, destroying the steady, even rhythm as he opens his bloodied hands. “Her face… She was in pain. I hurt her.”
Of course, to Lambert, who treasures women and goes out of his way to help them in ways no one even knows about, that’s the biggest sin of them all.
“You didn’t hurt her,” I reply, indignant. “She hurt herself. She used you. She had no right to—”
I cut off as I realise that my words aren’t helping. Instead of revitalising him, the glumness returns, and I notice he’s forced his breathing back into the same pattern I just taught him.
My anger might be the only thing keeping me from breaking down right now, but it’s having the opposite effect on Lambert.
“When she wakes up,” I try again, gentler this time, “you can talk to her. She’ll explain herself.”
No response.
Keeping vigil on this staircase isn’t helping. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s head out and grab something to eat. You’re going to need your energy back after the game.”
And while we’re gone, I can work on healing his hands. Some of those cuts look deep.
“Can’t.” He shakes his head. “The doors don’t work.”
What? “Some of them must.”
Every so often, a door happens to be a dud. You just have to move on and try the next. It’s one of the quirks of the Arcanaeum. He knows that.
Lambert rolls his eyes. “No, they’re all locked. Jasper wanted to get another restorationist to come and look at her. He tried six or seven in a row.”
So we’re trapped here?
“Besides, I don’t want to leave her. What if Jasper missed something? What if she wakes up?”
What if she doesn’t wake up?
That question hovers between us, sucking the air from the space.
“Food,” I insist. “Eddy is still living here, so there’s got to be food somewhere. And you need to rest after the game. You look knackered.” When he keeps hesitating, I add, “She’s taking care of Kyrith, and we can be up here in seconds if she calls.”
I’m not sure if that gets through to him, or if he’s simply too tired to argue, but he shoves to his feet and trudges down the stairs without a fight.
“I just can’t stop hearing her scream,” he whispers so softly I almost don’t catch it.
The worst part is, neither can I.