“What the hell?” Cirian spat. “I’ve been searching for you, Bast. Haven’t you felt it?” He covered the spot on his chest where the tether had been.
“I can’t,” Bastien continued, his words as unsteady as his retreating steps. “I can’t bear it.”
“What’s happened to you?” I asked, pushing off the wall to stagger toward the man. “What did this Umbral do?”
Bastien’s crazed gaze turned to me, a flash of recognition sinking beneath the panic. “Azrael.”
“Yes,” I confirmed, holding my hands up with my palms out. “You’re okay, Bastien. No one here is trying to hurt you. Tell us what’s happened.”
“I know you won’t hurt me,” he said, voice a bit stronger. “But you can’t help me, either. No one can. He has to take it back. Take it again.”
“Who?” I pressed, coming within arm’s length of him.
His eyes locked onto me then, lucid for the first time since he’d joined us.
“I couldn’t figure it out. I tried, Azrael. You have to believe me. I tried harder than I’ve ever tried before. Every pathway forward, a dead end. Failure after failure for months.”
Was he talking about Tobias?
“What happened to the Greenes is not your fault, Bastien. You must see that.”
A hand lashed out, gripping my forearm with such strength that it superseded the numbness, aching down to the bone. Bastien pulled me closer, his breath hot against my face. “He trusted me. He knew that I would find a way to wake him up. He came to me in my dreams, Azrael. Spoke to me as if I hadn’t failed him over and over again. How could I ever face him?”
“There is no one to blame for Tobias’s actions but himself, Bastien. You must see that. He chose his path, and we’ve all had to live with the consequences.”
He released my arm, running trembling fingers through his locs.
“I couldn’t figure it out.”
My heart ached to see him in such a state. I reached out to steady him, but Cirian was faster. He collided with Bastien, shoving him against the wall of the hallway.
“You’ve given up, then?” He questioned, holding the man in place as electricity crackled in the air around him. “You’ve decided you’d rather hide in the crushing oblivion than try and fix things?”
Bastien’s head lulled to one side, refusing to look Cirian in the eye.
“There’s no use. Just leave me be.”
“Coward. Are you so afraid of being wrong that you’d let yourself be puppeted by some shadowy arsehole instead? Maybe Tobias will be better off without you, then. Maybe—” he paused, swallowing before he continued. “Maybe we all will.”
Bastien didn’t respond as Cirian relinquished his hold, letting the man slump against the wall.
“Take it back,” Bastien muttered under his breath, then repeated it over and over.
Without warning, Cirian bellowed, the cry echoing down the empty hall as a bolt of cerulean lighting was loosed from his hand. The light flashed, then faded just as quickly, leaving me blinking into the darkness that surrounded us.
What hope I’d carried with us to this point was quickly burning out. Bastien had been the only plan that led to us making it out of this place. If he was lost to the Umbral’s embrace, then he took that hope with him.
“Let’s be gone,” Cirian said after a moment, turning back to me. “I can’t stand to look at him one moment longer.”
I rested a hand on his shoulder, but he quickly averted his eyes, blinking away the tears that he was trying to hide.
“You’re angry.”
“What led you to that conclusion?” he balked.
“He needs you. And you’re choosing to walk away.”
“He needs to quit being a coward,” Cirian replied, raising his voice loud enough for it to ring through the space.
