The frequency in my bones rolls upward through my chest, my throat, the back of my mouth. My stomach turns over once, hard.
I make it three steps off the path before I'm on my knees in the grass, retching.
Chapter
Eight
The Veil takes her.
Her distress hits me before the air has closed behind her. I'm already moving.
"Wait." Seraphina's hand is on my arm. "It needs a moment to reopen."
"She's hurting," I say.
"I know."
"She's hurting now."
"Maximus."
I stop moving.
Mira is at my other side, hands in fists. "Is she okay?"
"She'll be okay," Seraphina tells her. "The crossing is hardest the first time."
Mira nods once, eyes on the Veil.
Seraphina lifts her hand from my arm.
"Go."
I cross.
The cold takes me first, a compression that starts at the skin and pushes inward through muscle and bone. My body resists. Every reflex I've earned pushes back against the crossing.
Then my shadows wake. All of them. They surge through my chest and along my arms and strain against my skin, reaching for the other side of the Veil.
The Veil lets me go.
Celeste is on her knees in the grass, ten paces ahead.
I'm beside her before I've thought about the steps. One hand at the small of her back. The other gathering her hair off her neck.
"I'm fine," she says, before I can ask. "Just the crossing."
"I felt it."
"I know."
Her ring catches the light when she lowers her hand. The M and C crest bright against the gold.
"Can you stand?"
"Give me a second."
I look around.
