Jaylin heard her all night, speaking in his ear yet sounding a million miles away. Like a ghoul, she had nested in his head, he couldn't get her out. He laid in the bed she'd given him, in the heat of a woolly duvet, and he thought. He couldn't stop thinking, he just thought. He thought about all the things she'd told him over dinner, tried to remember all the gentle conversation that had passed him by while he'd sat in some kind of other-worldly fog. To be in her presence was like a fast drop from a hard drug. Nothing registered and still, even with her gone, he felt foggy.
But there was something else too. Something that tugged him away from all the will he had to follow this stranger. Something like a second mind, stuck in his head. Telling him to go back to where he'd come from. He hadn't known who it belonged to—not until he dreamt of Anna.
She was tall and beautiful, slender and naked in the ever white. She tucked her hair behind her ear, fingers wet with icy snow. She held out a delicate hand and Anna led him through the fur trees, over roots and stone and mountain. She led him to a blizzard that froze him down to the marrow of his bones. And through that blizzard, she led him to the clearing, the cold, snow-clad earth, bald of frozen evergreens that he'd dreamt about so many times before.
Sitting so beautifully in the flurry of white petals was a Yukon wolf. It didn't move—it was frozen, not by the wind or the cold or the snow, but by time. He knew by its eyes and the sunrise in its coat that the wolf was Quentin, but when Jaylin turned to ask why she'd brought him, Anna was gone, a patch of blood-red snow in her place.
It was when he woke that Jaylin knew he had to leave.
-
"Sadie."
"Sadie, pull back now. We're done."
Sadie woke to the darkness. It hadn't been dark when they first started.
She didn't remember much but setting the kyanite stone in the center of the candlesticks. Gazing into the cerulean colors and thinking she saw faces in the deep, endless recesses of blue and white. Faces in the sky; the sky in the stone.
Now it was like hours had gone by in the minutes she'd been resting her eyes, chanting the words along with Alex. Words she couldn't remember now. Something about the elements. Something about fire.
"Did it work?" She winced as the bedroom light shot on and what once was a flickering circle of ethereal candlelight became Alexander's room again.
Alex was above her, looking pale and holding his stomach, clutching feebly at the door frame.
"I—" he heaved a sudden breath, then he was cupping his mouth, rushing from the room.
Sadie tottered to her feet and followed after him, socks slipping against the slick floorboards. She reached the bathroom door half a second after Alex had shut it, and from outside, she could hear him retching.
"Alex?" She knocked at the wood with her knuckles. "Are you okay?"
He was silent inside, but for the sound of his hacking and the flush of a toilet. Then he was using the sink, probably washing the taste out of his mouth.
Sadie jumped as the door swung inward and Alex was in front of her, wiping a hand up his clammy, blanched face. "I don't know," he said, "I think it worked. I hope so."
"If it makes you this sick, how come you did it?"
"I wanted to help," he said. "And anyway, I know what I'm doing. Like I told you, anyone can practice spells. It's just that some people are born to do it."
"So why not a real witch? Couldn't we call someone?"
"The witch thing—it's complicated. Anyway, they don't really like werewolves, so we don't know any. I mean, besides you."
Sadie snorted. Maybe it was a way of hiding from her own nerves, but a witch? She most definitely wasn't a witch.
There was no point in arguing now; she'd done what he wanted, and at the moment, she was too scared to admit that she felt something strange all that time she stared into the kyanite stone. Something like an emotion that she'd never felt before. One that didn't even really exist.
But, a witch? Please.
Of course, she wasn't a witch.
Just then, the heavy wood of the front doors came thundering open on the floor below and Sadie jerked around, startled by how loudly their weighty thuds resonated through the empty hallways.
"That's Quen, aye?" asked a voice from the end of the hall. Felix was standing at the bend, looking wasted and rugged, deep shadows sunken under his eyes and his hair pushed back on his crown, slick and flat with sweat. He looked so sick, Sadie thought. Why did he look that way?
"Felix, wait," Alex protested as Felix pushed past him, carrying himself down the hall with every labored footstep. "Felix, you should be resting, wait." Then Sadie saw the flare of metal in the dead grip of his too-heavy left hand. A gun. "Felix, wait!"
They followed him to the banister of the stairs. Quentin was below, pulling the jacket from his arms and casting the heavy leather lazily over the back of the sofa. Felix charged down the steps to meet him, hands slipping down the banister. He rushed Quentin so quickly, he hadn't time for more than a breath of air before Felix shoved the silver pistol in his hand.
It was like the world and every living thing in it had stopped existing for Quentin.
All he had was the gun in his hand.
All that existed was the gun.
Sadie didn't understand what was so special about it, why it seemed to shut him down, turn him to steel and stone. But looking to Alex, she knew it had to be important. From the face he wore, she knew something was wrong; he looked even sicker now. So sick and so serious.
And poor Tisper had found herself in the uncomfortable crossfire. She swept out of the way and lingered by the open door, passing her nervous glances up the stairs to Sadie. Her shoulders jumped and Sadie communicated back with the small shake of her head. I don't know either, she wanted to say.
Quentin was stuck on that gun. Stuck on it, lost in the metal like something horrible haunted him in the reflection.
"No." He pushed the gun back into Felix's chest, shook his head, backed away. "No."
Felix advanced on the step he took, grappled Quentin by the wrist and shoved the gun back into his palm. It didn't matter that Quentin was the boss, didn't matter that he was the alpha; Felix was bigger. And he looked to Quentin harder than Sadie had ever seen another person stare into someone before. He looked right into his eyes and he forced Quentin's fingers around the handle.
"Felix, no," Quentin refused.
"You have to," Felix was growling back to him. It was quiet, but somehow it still echoed around the foyer. "He's your responsibility. Your monster."
"So I'll find another way—"
"Take the fucking gun, Quentin," Felix snarled. He shifted a step closer and Sadie realized now what was happening. Felix was afraid. "I can't be there this time. I can't be there with ye'. Take it," Felix said, quieter now. "Please."
He stood so close, hand locked around Quentin's, refusing to let go until he agreed. And when Felix wavered where he stood, that single moment of weakness seemed to wake something in Quentin. He took the gun willingly and let it fall to his side. Then he grabbed Felix by the back of the neck, pulled him down to rest against his shoulder and Felix let himself lean into the affection. He didn't raise his arms around Quentin, but he stayed there—allowed himself to stay there, curled into the broad of his shoulder.
And with his head close, Quentin spoke a quiet something into his ear. It was a brief hug, and then it was over. But for some reason, it made Sadie want to cry. It felt so much—too much like a goodbye.
Felix pulled back after that, left the room without acknowledging anyone. It was so unlike him—not that Sadie knew him well, but Felix came off so tough and rugged. So satisfied to be alone in this world. And yet no one was surprised by the uncharacteristic affection.
She watched from above as Quentin cocked the empty barrel and pocketed the gun. And Tisper followed after him, carrying something black and heavy in her arms.
When they were gone, she looked to Alex, who reclined against the railing of the stairs with a deep, troubled sigh.
"They're best friends," he explained and Sadie could hear the slightest tremble of emotion in his throat. "Felix won't ever admit it, but I think sometimes Quentin's all he has."
"So the gun?"
"Protection. Quentin just—he really hates guns. That gun. It's different."
"Okay... but, protection against what?" Sadie asked.
There was hesitance in Alex's words, in his expression. She could tell he wanted to say it, but he swallowed it down instead.
"Protection against Jaylin," Sadie concluded.
"Nothing will happen to him," Alex protested, "Nothing, I promise. It's just—you never know, you know? There are others we need protection from, it's not only Jaylin. But the Bad Moon is closing in and we're not sure we'll get to him in time."
She wasn't sure exactly what the bad moon was, but it all added up in her head anyway. Jaylin was going to turn, and after that, he'd be dangerous. Too dangerous for someone like her to be of any help at all.
She sighed and stepped forward to lean against the railing beside him. The last time she'd looked down from this spot, there were hundreds of beautiful bodies below. Dancing and laughing and living their lives knowing everything would be back to normal in the morning.
Everything was so simple. So stupid and simple and happy.
"So what's wrong with him?" she asked. "Felix. He looks sick."
"He's been poisoned," Alex said. "I guess that's the easiest way to explain it. Yeah. Poisoned."
"Will he be okay?"
"He'll be fine. But he can't do much. He definitely can't turn. Not until it leaves his system. Quentin's never gone headfirst into something like this, and especially never without Felix. He's worried."
Sadie felt a cold chill down her arms. "I'm worried too." She gripped the rails, felt along the carvings in the wood. She held onto them because they were something to hold onto. Because without them, it felt like she would slip away into her own deep, dark pit of disbelief.
As she watched Alex squeeze the railings until his knuckles went white, she wondered if maybe he was only trying to keep from slipping away, too.
"I'm terrified," he said, his voice so small. So small, it hurt to hear. "I think we all are."