Will. “Will!” I could finally make my lips work. I could finally make my legs work, pushing them, taking steps that seemed achingly slow. I tried to close the distance between us, I tried to reach his silent, crumpled form, but I couldn’t move fast enough. The air in the room seemed to push against me until finally, I was there, dropping to my knees, feeling his warm flesh underneath my palms. I pushed his arms aside and pressed my ear against his chest, praying silently to hear a beat.
There was silence. Dead silence. And then, a beat, and a second one, and I was crying. I raked my hands through his hair and murmured his name, relishing the steady sound of his heart until his eyelids fluttered and opened.
“What?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I wailed, the tears rolling down my cheeks.
“She’s okay,” Vlad said, and even without looking I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Sore,” Kale croaked.
I straightened, my hands still cradling Will’s head. “Lorraine? Lorraine?”
Nina’s coal-black eyes were heavy with emotion. She said nothing. There was no rhythmic rise and fall of Lorraine’s chest. No triumphant gulp of air or even a pitiful moan. There was just . . . nothing.
I remember the beeping because it was the only thing I could hear outside of the blood pulsing in my ears. People talked to me and jostled me, and I signed something and nodded a lot. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t anymore. My entire body felt papery thin and sucked completely dry.
We were in the hospital and Nina had both of my hands in hers. There were flashes of light and my head was cold and Will was looking down at me. I sprang to my feet and threw my arms around his neck and crushed myself to him, finally feeling his warmth as it seeped through me, made every fiber of my being hot and awake and alive again.
“Will, Will, Will,” I was mumbling into the crook of his neck, feeling the edges of his hair on my cheeks, inhaling his sweet, cut-grass-and-soap smell. And then the picture skewed and fish eyed. I could hear nothing but a deafening sizzling and hideous crackling, and the overhead lights were popping and smoking. . . .
I heard someone cough and sputter; then I felt the carpet against my knees, the heat of it as it brushed against my palms.
“Move her!” someone yelled.
I wanted to cry out as someone pinched my skin, as they tried to extract me from the ground I had melded to. I felt my head bobbing backward and was vaguely aware of movement, no blood now, then something cool washing over me and finally, softness.
I woke up sputtering in the darkness.
“Where am I? What the hell—where am I?”
I heard ChaCha’s surprised little yelp and felt her paws pitter across my bare skin. I shivered, then was finally able to push against what held me down and sit up. There was a click, and a tiny slice of yellow light. I squinted.
“Will?”
“She awakes!”
I heard a shuffle in the darkness and then the bed depressed. Will was next to me, sitting on my bed, his thumb brushing over my wrist as he counted. I tried to struggle free, but he was strong—and it was nice.
“Am I in my bed?”
“You are, and you’re alive.” He let go of my wrist. “Properly so.”
I leaned back against my pillows and rubbed my palm over my head. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you would tell me. What do you remember?”
“Stars. Darkness. Did Lorraine come over?”
Will nodded.
“And Kale, she was here, too, right?”
“Yes, Kale, too.”
I ran my tongue over my lips—they were dry and cracked. “So Lorraine and Kale—they’re okay.” I smiled, giggled. “They’re okay.”
The soft smile that played at the edges of Will’s lips was gone. “They will be.”
“What?”
“You passed out at the hospital, Sophie. As far as places to pass out, that was a capital choice, but we were there—do you remember any of this?”
My heart did a little half-beat as I reached out and gingerly threaded my fingers through Will’s hair, stopping just short of the bandage. “The spell.”
Images of Kale vaulting across the apartment and the shower of glass breaking over Will filled my vision, and I pinched my eyes shut, pressing my palms against them. “Kale—Kale. Is she—?”
“She’s fine,” Will said calmly, pulling my hands from my eyes. “I can’t say the same for your little otter mate though.”
I tried to sit up, but Will lulled me back down. “I have an otter?”
“Little plaster guy in the bookcase out there?” He jutted his chin toward the living room. “Kale used it as a thank-you gift on Vlad’s forehead.”
I frowned. “Oscar Otter?”
“I’ll pick you up some epoxy later.”
I snuggled back into my pillow and then sat bolt upright. “Lorraine!”
She was suddenly all around me, her body crumpled in an impossible S shape. Her eyes closed so gently, her lips slightly parted. The rivulet of blood at the edge of her lip burned into my vision and I gasped, breaking into a heartbroken sob. “Lorraine. Is she—is she—”