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a hand on my arm. “Enough detergent remains for forty-three normal loads. Your request is irrational.” She opened her door as I scowled at her response. I really really wanted to go to the store. Why was that irrational? “Remain in the vehicle,” she commanded, stepping down from the truck. “Vincent Pellini will drive behind me.” With that, she closed the door and walked toward the gate.
My annoyance gave way to bafflement. “What the hell?”
Idris grimaced. “Aversion wards. They’re attuned to you.”
“Of course they are,” I began, then my heart sank. I cast a despairing look at Idris. “No. They were. They were attuned to the me who had an arcane signature. They don’t recognize me as me.” Because I wasn’t “me” anymore.
Pellini winced and muttered a curse but kept watching Eilahn as she worked. Idris let out a heavy breath then climbed out to help her. I dropped my head back against the seat, gut aching as if I’d been sucker-punched. The urge to do random shopping eased as Eilahn and Idris reworked the wards, but left sick emptiness in its wake.
Pellini followed the pair to the house, parked and killed the engine. He looked at me with worry, but Eilahn bundled me out of the truck before he could speak. Idris set out toward the backyard without a word to anyone.
“You will take a long bath,” Eilahn told me. “That always lifts your mood and helps you relax.”
Pellini headed into the house. I paused at the bottom of the steps and struggled without success to see the warding, to feel the nexus.
Eilahn nudged me forward, and this time I didn’t resist.
Pellini was already in the kitchen when I entered, and Jill and Bryce sat at the table.
“There’s meatloaf on the stove,” Jill said to Pellini. Her eyes rested on me, gaze filled with deep concern. She knew me too damn well to miss that I was a wreck.
I couldn’t stomach the idea of rehashing the nightmare with the others. “You should go to the nexus,” I murmured to Eilahn. “I’ll take a bath.” She offered no protest, a clear indicator of her exhaustion. After escorting me to the bathroom, she trudged down the hall and out the back door.
I closed and locked the bathroom door, started the water and shed my clothes. Scars still covered my torso, hideous remnants of sigils I could no longer sense. I twisted to look in the mirror at the small of my back. Szerain had activated the twelfth sigil there—the only one that wasn’t a scar anymore. It should have glowed a gorgeous sapphire blue.
Nothing. Not a glimmer. Was it simply invisible to me, or had it been deactivated along with my arcane ability?
Straightening, I stared at my reflection. The sight of the scars destroyed the last thread of my stoic façade. If I have to lose my abilities, why couldn’t these terrible things go as well?
Stupid question. Because that’s how shit goes for me.
Lower lip trembling, I stepped into the tub and slid down. The water was only a few degrees shy of scalding, but I barely noticed the sting of it. Eyes closed, I steeled myself to test what I’d put off, dreading the answer. “Mzatal,” I whispered. Even with him withdrawn, I’d always been able to sense his presence when I tried. I opened my eyes, called to him, mentally reached.
Mzatal.
Nothing.
Mzatal.
Tears blurred my vision. As a final, giant fuck you from the universe, I’d lost the remaining wisp of my connection with Mzatal. Katashi had severed me from the arcane and my lover—a lover who needed me as much as I needed him. My silent weeping turned into heaving sobs drowned out by the sound of running water.
When the water began to lap at the edge of the tub, I pulled myself together enough to shut off the faucet, then lay back again, wrung out and exhausted. I wasn’t ready to get out and go to my bedroom. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Didn’t want to face all the reminders of what I’d lost. I soaked in the heat and hoped it would fill the gaping void.
A light tap on the door was followed by, “Kara?” Jill’s voice, heavy with concern. “You need anything?”
“No,” I said then added, “thanks.” I rested my head against the edge of the tub and gazed up at the ceiling. “I just need a little time.”
“Okay,” she said though she sounded no less worried. “If you get hungry, there’s meatloaf out here. And ice cream.”
“Thanks,” I said again and left it at that. A few seconds later I heard her footsteps retreating down the hall. I closed my eyes, not worried about falling asleep in the tub. Not with my mind jabbering as I struggled to make sense of the loss and twisted injustice of it all. When the water cooled to where it was barely tolerable, I let some out and ran more hot water in.
Eilahn was wrong, I thought. The bath didn’t help. It wasn’t bringing my arcane senses back. It didn’t change what happened to me one bit.
Well, maybe it helped a little. I didn’t smell like vomit anymore. I slid down until my ears were beneath the surface, and sound became surreal, distorted, and muted. I pretended that the outside world didn’t exist and that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t a summoner anymore or that I couldn’t feel Mzatal. I stared at nothing and clung to my sliver of peace as hard as I could.
A knock on the door echoed oddly through the water in my ears. “Hey, Gillian.” Pellini this time.
“What.”
