Chapter 37

37

SYLAS

When I found Mina she was a trembling mess, and I knew it was all my fault.

I'd murdered the men who were following her, squashing them easily like so many bugs, taking out my anger at myself on them, until I'd reached her at the end of a series of stinking caves, curled in over herself, her tears streaming from her eyes. She didn't respond when I talked to her, so I picked her up and started carrying her home.

Nothing changed while we were on our path. Wherever she was, she wasn't going to return to me so easily. I held her with one arm, while reaching through her apartment door with the other, to unlock it from the inside for us, and then dissipated some of myself in a broad perimeter around the building.

I hadn't killed Nolan, and I'd made it so the act of me taking him into one of my other dimensions shouldn't have broken the magic that hovered around him—but I was surprised, again, to discover it was magic very much like my own, same as the magic on Ella. But since I hadn't severed his connection to it yet meant that he must have been being watched, for us to have been followed, and Mina to have been attacked.

The knowledge that I'd unwittingly put her into danger made me roil. When I got back to that boy, I would pick him apart—and I would kill all of the men who hurt her, eventually.

But I couldn't stop her, right now, from hurting herself.

I carried her into the bathroom she'd shared with the other girl, and carefully sat her inside the tub, then pulled her clothing off of her like she was a doll, leaving her bra and underwear on because those things had seemed important to her, before beginning to run the water.

I made a scoop of my hands to wash her hair and wiped away the lines of old tears beneath her eyes, and slowly, ever so slowly, like ice thawing at the end of a cold winter, she came back to me, her breath deepening, her eyes blinking, and a confused furrow appearing between her brows.

"Sylas?" she whispered, and I relaxed a thousand degrees—I shouldn't have. "You left me."

"I did, my queen. But only for a moment."

"Why?" Her voice was soft and defeated.

"He was going to say something cruel, my queen. I didn't want you to hear it."

She nodded sorrowfully to herself. "So instead of trusting me to handle myself, you just left me alone? And in danger?"

I fell in on myself, kneeling outside the tub on her level, the almost the solidest I had ever been. "It was not my finest hour."

I watched her breathe for long moments, while staring straight ahead, until she said, "Get out. "

"My queen?"

Her gaze flickered my direction. "You heard me."

I dissipated myself at once, as though I'd followed her orders directly, but if she thought I would be leaving her alone ever again, for her brief time left on earth, she was a fool.

She waited in the tub, the steam leaving the water, her shoulders slumped, the hair I'd gotten wet making her look bedraggled. And then she cried some more— how could someone so small have so many tears?— before grabbing a small cloth and soaping it, to rub over herself, even on top of her clothing, in a long familiar path, over and over again.

I couldn't bear it, even though it would prove I'd disobeyed. I made a portion of myself visible. "They did not touch you. I made sure of it."

She paused, and then whirled at me, throwing the washcloth in my direction—I let it pass through me and it hit the door I was in front of. "How would you know? Were you there?"

"My queen," I said sorrowfully, coming more into my body. "I murdered everyone who chased you. When I reached you, you were alone. They did not touch you," I repeated. "Not this time," I added, and that made her look up at my face.

"Did you kill Nolan?"

And now she was asking if I'd read his mind near death. "Not yet, my queen," I said, daring to come nearer the tub again, and settling down. "But he is a man, and I have seen men do many horrible things."

She rolled her eyes and gave a harsh dry laugh. "Yeah, I bet you have. That's another great thing about being assaulted. It's not even a particularly unique experience, it's more like you're joining a shitty pirate crew. Welcome aboard the USS You've Lost Your Bodily Autonomy, Now What? —no, literally, I'm asking." Then she took a deep inhale, and sank beneath the waterline, holding her breath below it.

I wondered how long I should give her before I pulled her back up. But then she emerged and swiped her hair back from her face. She waited long more moments, clearly thinking, before closing her eyes and shaking her head.

"Grab me a towel?" she finally asked, and I did as I was told.