Chapter 27
Cillian
Ibarely made it back to my room, my heart pounding out of my chest, my vision blurry. And godwitches, why was it so fucking hot?
I stumbled onto my bed, sprawling out on my back. My head was spinning as I stared at the ceiling, trying to get a grip on myself, but I couldn’t see straight. I could barely form a thought, other than that image of Ceri’s face, so horrified by what we’d been about to do.
All these years, I’d kept such a careful grip on my control . . . and that had come crashing down today. Now it was all imploding inside me, and I felt like I might actually die.
I rolled over and curled into a ball, bringing my knees tight to my chest and knowing that only one thing could help me right now.
Just one more vial. One more, and then I’d get help.
I’d go to Enid and see if she had any suggestions on how to control my use, get back to just my daily sips.
But I was too far gone today. My emotions were spiraling inside me, rising into a tidal wave that was going to crash and drown me completely.
I wouldn’t recover if I didn’t get more of my tonic.
Get high. Lor’s voice echoed, and I brought my hands to my head and squeezed. “Shut up,” I said. “Just shut up.”
I didn’t want to think about Lor, who probably wasn’t even real.
I didn’t want to think about Ceri. I didn’t want to think about the trials.
I wanted to shut it all out, and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t.
I’d taken a whole fucking vial, for godwitches’ sake.
That should’ve kept me numb for days, if not weeks.
Sweat prickled across my skin, and I stripped off my sticky shirt. My body was on fire. I needed help, but if I asked for help, then they’d know. Everyone would discover my secret.
Ceri would discover my secret, and then all my carefully kept lies would crumble apart when she realized why I’d started taking this tonic in the first place. Why I so badly needed to numb myself.
I yelled out in pain as a wave of spasms rocked my body, my stomach seizing.
“Fuck,” I yelled out. “Make it stop. Someone please make it stop.”
“There is no making it stop,” a voice said, and I lifted my head, barely able to see Lor’s blurry form walking toward me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked my brother, voice weak and ragged.
He sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re sick. You need to call for help.”
“I can’t,” I said. “She can’t know.”
“Ceri?” Lor scoffed. “She already knows something is wrong.”
“How would you know that?” I asked, and it dawned on me that I’d been right all along. Lor wasn’t real. I’d been imagining him. He was some part of my mind, a hallucination.
Maybe I was sicker than I’d thought.
“Let me call for help,” Lor said. “Please. Don’t you have that sentient painting that can carry messages? What’s her name? Margaret, if I’m remembering right.”
“No,” I gritted out, clutching my stomach tight as pain seared through it. “I can handle this. Just took too much. Going to be fine.” My words came out between heavy breaths.
Lor’s form split into two. “I don’t think you are going to be fine. I don’t think you’re going to be okay at all.”
“Not real,” I said.
“What’s not real?” he asked.
“You. You’re not real,” I said. “In my mind. Not real.”
“If you don’t call her name, I will,” he said.
I laughed, the sound harsh and hacking. “You can’t. You’re me. I’m you.”
I rolled onto my back, spreading my arms and legs out. Spots dotted my vision so that I saw more black than the ceiling painted to look like the sky.
“Margaret,” a voice called. “Damnit, no,” I said. I didn’t even have control over my own mouth anymore, my own voice.
But I didn’t hear Margaret respond, so I wondered if maybe I’d imagined Lor calling her name. Maybe I was imagining all of this, and it was just a bad dream that I’d wake up from any moment. Or maybe I really was dying.
I couldn’t die. I’d never see Ceri again.
“Ceri?” Lor asked. “You will see her again, brother.”
Had I been speaking out loud? My vision started to black out, Lor’s face flickering in and out of darkness.
“No, Cillian. Stay with me. Stay awake. Please. Margaret!”
“Stop doing that,” I said, not even sure what my reality was anymore.
“Don’t want Margaret. Want Ceri. Just want Ceri.”
“I’m here,” she said, and I looked up to see her concerned face. “I’m here.”
I smiled. “I love you,” I said. “I’ve always loved you.”
Her eyes welled with tears.
“I wish you were real. I wish I could tell you all of this for real. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I was so weak.”
She shook her head, those golden curls bouncing with the movement. “No, don’t talk. I’m going to get you help. You’re going to be okay.”
I wasn’t. My entire body was shutting down, and I knew it. This was the end for me. I only hoped Ceri knew how hard I’d fought to stay with her.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, even though I knew that just like Lor, she was an apparition, a ghost in my mind here to remind me how badly I’d failed myself and everyone of Fairwitch Isle, and now, it was too late to fix any of it.