Page 110 of Blade of the Nightking

“It doesn’t hurt,” I offered.

She winced faintly. “It’s not only about that. I slip so easily these days…” Again, her voice trailed away, but I understood. A single touch could send her tumbling back into that fathomless place that swallowed her for days or weeks at a time. And she was trying, desperately, to prevent that.

“It would be nice, though,” she admitted softly, “to touch someone properly again. And enjoy it.”

My chest ached for her. The despair behind her eyes was impossible to miss, no matter how carefully she tried concealing it. A moment later she attempted another smile, though it looked more like a grimace.

“Well,” she said, “shall we continue the lesson?”

“Of course.” I scooted forward slightly in my chair, eager to move us away from the painful turn the conversation had taken.

She sorted through the new stack of books beside her before selecting a small, thin one with a crescent moon pressed into the cover.

“Let’s try some reading aloud today. Would that be alright?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Good.”

She shifted her chair closer until our shoulders nearly brushed and nudged the book between us.

I squinted at the title. “The Little Moon Boat,” I read aloud.

“Very good.”

I flipped open the cover, ready to begin.

A drawing had been scrawled across the inside in faded ink.

It was crude and unmistakably childish. Two figures stood beneath an enormous crescent moon and a scattering of stars—one tall, one small. The smaller figure clung tightly to the taller one's hand. Beside them floated a crooked little boat upon curling waves.

Levinica made a soft sound beside me. Not quite a gasp.

I turned toward her at once.

Her fingers had begun to tremble. Slowly, she reached for one of her gloves and peeled it free before letting her bare hand hover over the page. Her fingertips drifted over the uneven lines of the little boy, tracing the tiny hand clasped in his mother’s.

“Levinica?”

She didn’t answer.

When I looked up at her face, her eyes had already gone glassy. Tears slid soundlessly down her cheeks as she stared at the drawing like she was no longer seeing the page at all, but something far beyond it.

“My baby,” she whispered.

Fear shot through me. I shoved backward so quickly my chair scraped harshly against the floor.

“Segolayne!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the apartment. “Segolayne!”

Levinica didn’t react.

By the time Segolayne came rushing into the room, Levinica had already gone somewhere unreachable. She sat curled in the chair, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she rocked back and forth, her bare hand still pressed against the open book. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused.

And beneath her breath, barely audible, she was humming what sounded like a lullaby.

CHAPTER 23

“I’m not certain how this is possible,” Segolayne sneered down at me, upside down from where I lay sprawled on the mat, “but somehow you’ve become worse overnight.”