Page 25 of Serpent and Shadow

I watched it pad silently after its wizard through the front door.

I was still watching right up until the door shut behind them.

6

Alone

Still standing vaguely by Bones’s coffee table and fire, I stared at where the bear and the professor had been. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so exhausted.

I willed myself to move.

I desperately needed a shower.

Eventually, the need to deal with how sticky and gross and filthy I was overcame the utter lack of desire I had to go through the effort of cleaning myself. I began to walk, moving stiffly in the direction of the loo. A lot of the adrenaline, or anxiety, or whatever had been keeping me moving urgently forward all day, seemed to be finally wearing off.

I could feel my whole system starting to crash.

The shivering had gotten worse.

Had I been doing that the whole time I’d been talking to Forsooth? If so, that might explain why the professor seemed so worried about me.

He’d always been unnervingly observant.

I fought not to think about Bones. Somehow, until those last few seconds with Forsooth, I’d managed to forget not only his words, but what I’d felt behind them. Now it all came rushing back: the darkness, the metal on bone, the emptiness behind Bones’s presence, the horrible pain on him I’d felt, the effort to speak, the viciousness of his words.

Everything else that happened that day came crashing down also, including, maybe for the first time, the parts that happened to me.

I hadn’t come out of that fight in the garden unscathed.

Emotionally, I’d known that.

Now the physical side of things seemed to be catching up, too.

My hands were bruised and cut from where I’d smashed my fists into the mirror. The back of my head throbbed from Isis knew what. I had burns on my arms and hip from magical fire, my back hurt worse than my head and jaw, and one of my knees had swollen under the trousers I wore. I also seemed to have nicks and cuts all over my face and neck.

Other than my coat and boots, which I’d left by the door, I still wore the same clothes I’d worn to brunch that morning.

Bones’s room looked enormous to me suddenly, much bigger than my dormitory in Valarian, even if I included Jolie’s and Miranda’s rooms. Bones’s study with its enormous desk, the tall windows, the half-dozen curved bookshelves and how high they rose up the wall’s height, magical file cabinets with odd, interlinking locks, magical curios and talismans, thick sheafs of paper and parchment, rows of bottles filled with potions and ritual ingredients.

Even his kitchen, which I’d always thought of as small, was larger than I’d realized, nearly the size of my bedroom in Valarian if I excluded the closet and loo.

My bedroom.

That room in Jolie and Miranda’s Valarian suite, the one I got assigned at the beginning of the year, was no longer mine though, was it?

The largeness of this new space made me feel very alone.

Maybe some of it was the uselessness I felt.

As Forsooth so helpfully pointed out, I didn’t have anything left to do.

Not tonight, at least. Not that I was capable of doing.

Realizing I hadn’t thought of clothes, I turned around just before I reached the loo and walked back to Bones’s walk-in closet. I stood there for a ridiculous amount of time, trying to decide what to wear to bed.

I’d definitely fallen on getting Wraith tomorrow.

As much as I wanted her with me, I was in no condition to deal with Miranda right then, and I knew it. I doubted I could have handled Jolie, much less Miranda or Draken. So even though I wanted my cat––and, if I was being honest, I really wanted my friends, too––I needed to wait until I’d gotten at least a few hours of sleep.