I raised a hand, dim, so dim, almost transparent now. I could see the mist through it, like it was almost a part of it, like it was floating away . . . and maybe it was. Maybe it already had. Maybe I had. Things were getting dimmer, harder to see, and I didn’t know if that was the clouds getting thicker with stolen power or my sight getting dimmer, but either way, it was very bad news. Because I couldn’t see at all now.
I stumbled on anyway, hoping I would literally stumble into my goal. Would I know it? I thought I would know it, but what were the odds? It was a huge hillside and my body was small and I couldn’t see—
“Cassie!”
The sound was vague and indistinct, like my form, like everything. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard it, but then it came again, a faint, echoing sound, but stronger to the right. Was it? I thought so, and instinctively moved in that direction.
“Cassie!” It came again, nearer now, or so it seemed, maybe . . . I couldn’t really tell. I didn’t have ears; how could I hear without ears? Wasn’t sure I had much of anything now, and I had a feeling a coherent thing like a body might be too much for me to maintain at this point. I had a flash of a dim silver ball, a little twinkling light against a wall of clouds, bright, so bright, against the darkness. But I was probably just making that up. I couldn’t see, after all. I didn’t have—
“Cassie!”
I jerked, because that had been close. Really close. Close, close, somewhere . . .
There.
I felt a body, not mine, but familiar. Warm. So full of life. Hurt.
Why was it hurt?
“Cassie! Listen to me. You have to merge with your body. You have to do it now!”
My body. Yes. I had to get back to . . . but where was it? I put out a hand, or what would have been a hand if I had hands left, a tendril of power, anyway—
And then snatched it back, mewling in pain, after something took what felt like a bite right out of it. God, that had hurt. But it cleared my mind, or what was left of it, because I suddenly remembered. My body . . . was on the ground.
I dove, and something screeched in my ear, a furious, screaming cry, full of hunger and pain and desperation—
And then I was back, filling myself not in one quick rush as I had before, but in tiny trickles here and there. Funny, it didn’t feel that different, being back. It didn’t feel that different at all.
I stared up at the sky, at the rain falling almost straight down, highlighted here and there by stray beams of moonlight. It wasn’t enough to obscure the stars, which were winking with pinprick brightness through the trees. Or the moon, riding a sea of clouds overhead, silvering the landscape. Beautiful.
I wondered if I was dreaming. And then I knew I was, because he was there. Strong arms went around me, pulling me up. Beautiful, I thought, looking into clear green eyes.
He gathered me in, folding me under his chin, and I thought there was something . . . something strange about . . .
He had on a shirt too light for the weather, thin cotton with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, showing the tendons in his forearms. His forearms . . . that was it. I could see the arms he’d wrapped around me because he wasn’t wearing his old, battered coat. But Pritkin always wore . . . didn’t he? Some reason floated here and there, darting across my mind like a butterfly . . . but I couldn’t . . . couldn’t catch it. . . .
“Cassie.” Warm fingers trailed down my cheek, my neck. So warm, so warm. Was he healing? I couldn’t remember him being this warm. But it felt good. It felt . . .
A sigh leaked out like blood.
We sat like that for a moment, his chest hard at my back, his arms hard around me, so solid, grounding, when I felt like I could float away. My head lolled back against his shoulder. It seemed too hard to hold it up anymore. His hand came up, burying itself in my hair, clenching.
And then releasing as he carefully laid me down on the grass again.
His face swam into view over me. He looked different, and it wasn’t just the coat. His hair was a rumpled, silky mess. His eyes were hot, the lines around his mouth deeply etched. He was breathing hard. I watched it curl out of him, silver air on a silver sky. . . .
Maybe I’m dreaming, I thought vaguely. Maybe he wasn’t here at all, just some shade I’d conjured up because I didn’t want to die alone. But he looked real, sharply defined by dark shadows, highlighted at the curve of his neck, the breadth of his shoulders, by moonlight. Substantial, undeniably there. My fingers curled around his, and he caught them in a hard grip.
I thought I could write a ten-page paper, with illustrations, on all the ways Pritkin’s features differed from the usual standards of beauty, but that didn’t change anything about what I saw when I looked at the man.
“Beautiful,” I whispered. He closed his eyes.
Overburdened clouds broke open with a rumble and a sigh and rain fell like a veil across the horizon. I was watching it, mesmerized at how it blurred the distant mountains, at how it—
Pritkin’s hands framed my face. He bent closer, until his lashes brushed my cheek, until his lips touched mine. “Kiss me.”
Or, at least, that’s what I thought he said. But it was hard to hear. Something like voices murmured in my head, like a hive full of lazy bees, inarticulate and insistent, waxing and waning. I wished they’d shut up.