Chapter 82 Taera
Taera
I’m the reason Mom was attacked.
I can’t breathe. The white walls of the back room—the shelves, the jars, the scale—all lurch around me. I stumble toward a counter, catching it with a hand before slumping against it. My stomach contracts, and I double over, retch all over the floor we just cleaned.
“Taera?” Omi is at my side. “What’s wrong?”
I stare at them, unseeing.
“My mom,” I manage.
I’m shaking. Omi is leading me out the door, pulling back pink curtains around one of the beds of the main Healers’ Wing. They’re urging me to sit down. I let them maneuver me, hardly aware of the room around me, just drowning beneath the soul-numbing, crushing despair of what happened to Mom.
Sobs rack my body.
“Do you want me to get Nikolai?” they ask.
I grimace, shaking my head. I can’t stomach being raw like this with him, not now.
“What happened?” Omi asks, more softly.
The attack was my fault.
Tears drip from my cheeks. The curtains press in around me until there’s nothing else in the world aside from the bed I’m clinging to. I become aware of someone—myself—taking shuddered, too-fast breaths that keep catching.
Omi’s kind eyes.
Everything comes tumbling out alongside the tears.
* * *
Omi sits at the edge of the bed, their eyes brimming with compassion. They took my hand partway through and they’re still holding it, even after the story is over.
I’m panting, shivering, and they’ve wrapped a soft blanket around my shoulders. The cotton corner is damp with tears.
My eyes fall shut. My mind, body, and magic feel completely spent.
“Taera,” Omi says quietly, “it wasn’t your fault.”
I choke back a sob. “But if she hadn’t given me her pendant—if she’d come to the Halls of Glass to train, or sent me here… she might still be alive.”
“Maybe,” they say. “But that was her choice.”
“There had to be another way,” I whisper. “How could she?”
Omi just squeezes my hand. It’s something Gramps would do. I burst into tears all over again, hunching in on myself.
When I’ve cried all I can, my rib cage hollowed by grief, I make myself straighten.
“Is there anything I can do?” Omi asks.
“You already have.” My throat is raw. I try to smile, gesturing to the curtains, to the bed I’m sitting on. “You’ve always helped me. Told me the truth. You’re…” I chuckle.
“What is it?” They look alarmed, like they’re worried I need a healer.
“I just never thought my closest friend would be a magician.”
“Oh.” They sigh, then offer a half-smile. It warms some of the cold emptiness in me. They’re one of the good parts of this place. But then I picture Mom and the warmth collapses.
I tug my hand free, lifting it to her pendant. “I just… don’t know what to do. What do I tell Ezran, or Gramps?”
Omi furrows their brow.
I go on. “After she passed, I was the one who couldn’t move on. I needed to know how I could have saved her—even after it was too late. And now I do. But how do I tell Ez and Gramps they didn’t have to lose her?”
Omi is quiet for a long moment, looking pained. When they finally speak, their voice is quiet. “Do they need that truth?”
I stare at them, horrified. “Of course they do.”
“You know best,” they murmur, looking away.
I shrug the blanket off and stand up. I know they meant well, but I can’t stand the idea of lying to my family. Anger flares in my chest, anger that Omi doesn’t deserve.
I need space to think. But something else that they said flutters through my mind.
“Wait.” I swivel to look at them. “You said a relic went missing. Was it stolen?”
Their gaze darkens. “No one knows who took it. It shouldn’t have been possible.”
With my head clearing, heavy dread knots in my chest.
“How many people would have been capable of taking it?” I ask slowly, and I know we’re both thinking of the same magician.
Omi doesn’t meet my gaze. “It wasn’t necessarily him.”
“I have to go,” I say, pulling the curtain back. “Thank you… for everything.”
“Taera, wait.”
I look back at them, waiting. They deserve that much, before I confront the magician who might have stolen from the healers. Who would do that? My mouth turns bitter.
“You asked me earlier about the center of the labyrinth,” Omi says.
“The thing is, if… if some magician actually managed to find such an amulet, there would be consequences. Magicians become lost, or go insane, seeking the center of the labyrinth. There’s a reason infinite power shouldn’t be possible. ”
“Shouldn’t be?” Not isn’t. My hand stills on the curtain. “What would happen to them?”
It doesn’t feel like we’re discussing hypotheticals anymore.
“Losing track. Not being able to differentiate what’s real and what’s an illusion. They… go insane.” Omi bites their lip, glancing at me. “Have there been any illusions that Niko can’t control? Is he having nightmares?”
My blood runs cold.
I need answers. I need to know why he would steal a relic from the healers. Why he’s willing to lie and steal and put up walls to keep everyone out. Is he trying to give himself up for Hazel—the way Mom did for me?
He may have hurt me, but he doesn’t deserve to go mad.
Has he already guessed what happened to my mother?
My resolve hardens like a shell. I need to confront him. I need to finally get the truth.