15. Saying Too Much #3
“Yes.” I looked at him, and bit my lip. “Multiple times. He hasn’t really answered. Not the way you mean.”
“Does he do that often?” Nyx asked. “Not answer you?”
I looked over at her, and shrugged.
“I don’t know.” I tilted my palms up. “Define ‘often.’ There are significant stretches of time where he doesn’t answer, yes.
” Hesitating at their silence, I added, “Sometimes I can scarcely feel him at all. It’s like he disappears.
It’s highly probable he can’t always talk to me depending on where he is, and who he’s with.
Presumably he’s not carrying on full-blown conversations with me while he’s out with his father.
Or hanging around any of the other Dark Cathedrals. ”
I bit my lip, wondering if I should be telling them this.
But once I’d started, it was difficult to stop.
“It’s kind of horrible, honestly,” I confessed, wiping my face with a hand.
“It can even make me sick. There’s this kind of…
” I fought for words. “…dread feeling… like he’s died.
It gets worse the longer the silence goes on.
If it goes on for too long, I start to panic.
Mostly, though, I just get increasingly anxious.
It feels like time is running out, like I have to do something. Right now. Immediately.”
I motioned with both hands towards my belly and heart.
“It can hurt my chest, make it hard to breathe…” I trailed, fighting for the right way to explain it. “I don’t know if that’s the case on his side, or if it’s purely psychological on mine.” I hesitated again. “It feels like I’m dying. Like both of us are dying.”
A dense silence followed my words.
I immediately regretted saying so much.
When they continued to not speak, I regretted it more.
Finally, Luc cleared his throat.
“They must have hit you hard,” he ventured. “By the fountain.”
I looked at him, and saw he’d made his expression neutral, along with his voice.
It wasn’t difficult to see that everything I’d said worried him.
He might even think I was imagining it, that I might not be able to communicate with Bones at all.
Which meant he might be questioning everything I’d told them about what happened that afternoon.
He might think I hit my head running into the fountain, and only dreamed being in the Tower.
I couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, though. Luc’s magic was too strong for that. His blue eyes were a lot easier to read, and through them, I could tell he was worried about me. Whatever his exact thoughts, it wasn’t the kind of worry that made you trust someone.
He grimaced, almost like he heard me.
He pushed his glasses up his nose with a knuckle.
Then he copied my pose, leaning his forearms on his thighs. His lemur curled its striped tail into a question mark shape, and dug its claws into Luc’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Leda,” he said. “I’m not doubting you, not like you seem to think.
I’m more thinking about the phasing. About the mechanics of it.
And yes, it worries me. Because if Bones is right about that, and he’s spending a lot of time with his father and other Dark Cathedrals, you really could end up somewhere very, very bad. ”
He cleared his throat, and his voice went back to brusque.
“You said Bones told you the same thing happened to him, right?” he asked next.
“That when it first started, he primarily phased when he was afraid or in danger? It must’ve occurred to you that’s what happened today.
You got scared and your magic just… I don’t know…
pulled you out of immediate danger. Twice. ”
I adjusted my hip in the couch and winced.
I’d forgotten the bruise I’d gotten when I landed on Bones’s canopy and ripped forcibly through the fabric. It still hurt like hell. My whole left hip had been bright red under the hot water when I’d taken a shower.
“Yes,” I said to Luc. “I agree that’s the most likely explanation.”
Thinking about that, trying to push away everything else I’d said and thought, I set my mug on the stone floor so it wouldn’t damage Alaric’s map. I clasped my hands, and carefully stretched my back.
I did my best to ignore the anxious, sick feeling that swirled in my chest.
“We should test it,” I said decisively. “We should try to get it to work again.”
There was another silence.
That time, it was Nyx who broke it.
She let out an amused grunt.
“You mean someone should try to kill you again?” she asked wryly. “Do you want us to jump out of bushes at random, shove you into walls?”
I returned her amused look unsmilingly.
“Something like that,” I admitted. “I was thinking more like finding some way to scare that part of me enough that it reacts the same way.”
“Scare it?” Luc scoffed. “How, exactly? Anything we do, you’re going to know it’s only us. Which means you’re going to know we’d never really hurt you, Leda. How could we ever be convincing enough to fool it?”
“We could get her drunk,” Nyx suggested, winking at me.
I was thinking though, turning over something I knew they wouldn’t like.
“I’ve got something different in mind, actually,” I said, lifting my mug.