Riot put his hand on the door and looked back to see that Sage had a blade—Honey’s blade, pressed into her hand somewhere between the trellis and here. Honey looked terrified.
“On my count,” Riot said.
He didn’t count.
He put his shoulder to the door.
Chapter forty-two
The Session
Cass
Itwasalmostover.Cass could tell because Brother Matthias had put the tool away and moved on to the bandaging, which was always the last part before the breathing. The bandages went on his ribs and across his chest and over the places on his inner thighs where the newest circles were reopened, and Brother Matthias’s hands were gentle the way they always were during this part. The gauze stuck to the ointment, which stuck to the wounds, which stuck to Cass, andthe whole thing felt like being put back together by someone who had taken him apart on purpose.
He knelt on the mat in his underwear and tried to breathe the way he’d been taught. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The pain is negative energy leaving the body. The pain is space being made for divine light. If it hurts, that means it’s working.
He used to believe that. Not even that long ago—weeks, maybe. Tonight the breathing hurt and the divine light wasn’t coming, and the room smelled like blood mixed with the dark smell underneath Brother Matthias’s robes that he’d noticed at breakfast and couldn’t stop noticing now. He didn’t have a name for it. It was heavy and warm and made his head pulse behind his left eye.
“You’re doing beautifully,” Brother Matthias said. “I can feel the energy shifting already.”
Cass wiped his eyes. He was crying more than usual, which was saying something, because he always cried during sessions—the cutting hurt, and Brother Matthias said the tears were just the body letting go of what it didn’t need. But tonight the crying started before the tool came out and it wasn’t really about the circles.
There was a sadness in his chest that wasn’t his. It was a rock behind his ribs that throbbed with a heartbeat that wasn’t his heartbeat and tasted like strawberries sitting in salt water. Riot was crying, and Cass felt it coming through the invisible thing between them. He pressed his hands to each of his eyes and tried not to think about it. He had to be the things he wasn’t for this all to work—strong and brave.
“The tears are heavy tonight,” Brother Matthias said.
“Yes, Brother Matthias.”
“Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”
“Sadness,” Cass said, which was true, but not the whole truth. “I’m sorry. Could I—can I seek comfort?”
“Of course, dear heart. Come here.”
He leaned forward and pressed his face into Brother Matthias’s robes. They were soft, smelling like the laundry building and underneath that, the person who he looked up to. The person who read him stories about the eagle who found transcendence and did the eagle’s voice, serious and deep, and then squeaky when the eagle was scared. The person who came to his room when he couldn’t sleep and saidyou’re special, Cassiopeiawhen nobody else had a dad and Cass did, sort of.
Even now the robes still smelled like safety and Cass cried into them quietly, because the walls were thin, Riot was outside, and if Riot heard him crying, Riot might come through the wall.
Brother Matthias’s hand settled on his hair, his fingers moving along the braids, brushing back the strands that had come loose while Cass shook during the session. The way he’d always done it. Cass’s breathing slowed. His shoulders dropped. He let himself be held and comforted, because he was tired and this was the one part of the sessions that always felt okay.
“There,” Brother Matthias said. “Let it out.”
The finishing meditation was the last part. Facing each other on the mat, knees almost touching, Brother Matthias’s arms around him, breathing together until the negative energy was gone, and Cass could put his robes back on and go to bed.
“I was worried about you,” Brother Matthias said softly. “When you disappeared from the Neutral Zone…I thought I’d lost you, Cassiopeia.”
“I’m sorry.” The word came out before anything else, the way it always did. “I—one of the people I was trying to recruit, a vendor, she didn’t want to listen, and she was connected with the professional bad people…they told me to leave. I was walking back for a very long time and there were wild Berserkers onthe road and—” He built the lie as he said it, each piece fitting the next. Lying was easier the more he did it, but he didn’t like it. “Riot and Sage were traveling through. They wanted to find transcendence.”
“And you brought them here. Two seekers—a Berserker and a Null. Do you understand how remarkable that is?”
Cass’s chest ached below the circles. Part of it was the guilt of lying to the person who taught him that lying was disharmonious, but also the real part underneath—the part that was sixteen somewhere inside him and always loved when Brother Matthias saidI’m proud of you.
“I just don’t want—” His voice broke. “I don’t want to do Chrysalis again. Whatever didn’t work the first time…I don’t want Honey to have to go through it. So if the seekers are enough to—”
“Cassiopeia.” Brother Matthias’s arms tightened. “I need to tell you something. The Elders have been talking about your situation.”
Cass stopped breathing.
