Page 146 of Echoes of the Banshee

I wait. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s not upset. Maybe I pushed too hard.

God. I probably scared her off. It’s probably just me.

Then I hear the click of the lock. The door opens, and Thea stands there, barely holding herself together.

She’s a mess. Hair tangled like she’s been yanking at it, circles under her eyes so dark they look bruised. She hasn’t been sleeping. Hell, it looks like she hasn’t left her room all day.

“Hey,” I say, trying for a smile, soft and lopsided.

She blinks like she’s surfacing from deep underwater. A flicker of something crosses her face. A ghost of a smile. But it doesn’t reach her eyes.

And that, that hurts more than I want to admit.

She feels so far away.

“Hey,” she replies. “I’m not in the mood for company, Zair.”

I could accept it, but I don’t. “Good, because I’m not planning on staying. You’re coming with me.”

“But—”

“—Dylan issued a challenge. He said that werewolves are better bowlers than witches. Now are you going to let this slide or are you going to help me defend all witch kind?”

She looks at me like I’ve completely lost it. And for a second, I think she’s going to shut the door in my face.

She’s tired, but not the kind sleep can fix; she looks like she’s been fighting her own demons all week. It would almost certainly be easier to tell me to leave. To crawl back into the dark and spiral alone.

But she’s already tried that.

She exhales through her nose, jaw tightening.

Then something shifts behind her eyes. A small spark of life.

She gives me a begrudging smile and steps aside, holding the door open.

“We can’t let those shifters think they’re the best,” she insists, forcing levity into her voice. “They do know we can control the wind, right?”

The laugh that follows is fake, brittle around the edges. But she tried.

She gestures toward the desk for me to sit, then turns to rummage through her wardrobe like this is just another normal night.

“Definitely not,” I agree. Fine. If pretending is the only option left, then we’ll pretend. We’ll fake it until it feels like living again.

“Do I have time to shower?” she asks, and disappears into her en suite as soon as I tell her she does. I came by early, figuring it would take a while to convince her and for her to get ready.

I look around her room. I haven’t spent much time in here; she doesn’t have a TV, so we always watch movies in my room. It feels like the space can’t decide what it wants to be: half composed, half unraveling.

Her calendar hangs on the wall, meticulously color-coded. Above the desk, her books and notebooks are lined up by class, arranged with military precision. Even her bed looks like it’s been made with an almost obsessive level of care, the blanket pulled tight, the pillows stacked neatly at the head. It’s almost unnerving in its perfection.

At the same time, papers are strewn about, as if her thoughts had burst past the limits of tidy piles. I almost laugh when I spot the stacks of notebooks under her bed, like she needs them within reach in case she wakes up with a burning question. Books are scattered across the floor, some left open, abandoned mid-read.

A whole stack on the Briarhold Coven catches my eye. I didn’t even know there were that many books about the massacre. I kneel down to grab one when my eyes fall on the wall and I wonder how I hadn’t noticed before. It’s covered with multicolored tally marks. The lines are uneven, scattered across the surface with no clear pattern, but I can feel the significance of them. Fifty-four tallies: days, or something else? The wall feels like a map of a journey she’s been on. I don’t fully understand, but I can’t look away from it.

What’s she counting from? I pull out my phone and start counting backwards. The start of school, no, not enough… it comes to September fourteenth. That doesn’t make any sense. I stare at the date but it doesn’t mean anything to me.

The bathroom door opens, and Thea steps out, fully dressed. She stands in front of the mirror, to the right of the tally marks on the wall, and begins brushing her long dark hair. For a moment, I’m completely mesmerized. It’s ridiculous how easily she knocks me off balance. Like her beauty waits until I’m not ready and then takes a swing.

“What?” Thea asks, glancing at me over her shoulder. I realize I’ve been caught staring.