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"Would you rather I freak out like you are?"
Luca gave me a reassuring smile from the driver's seat. "Julian will help us," he promised.
I had just opened my mouth to answer when everything went dark.
"River? River?"
I blinked.
"River?"
I blinked again, and everything swam into focus. We were stopped—when had we stopped?—by the side of the road, and Luca and Theo were turned fully in their seats to face me, identical worried looks creasing both their brows.
I stared between them, then licked my dry lips. "What…what happened?"
"You…I don't know," Theo said, his voice hoarse.
"You stopped speaking, and would not respond to us." Even unflappable Luca's eyes were wide.
“I…I don't remember that," I croaked out. "How long did it last?"
"Not long," Theo said. "Maybe five minutes? We pulled over as soon as we realized something was wrong."
My hands were clammy and I wiped them on my knees. It had never happened when I'd been awake before. Not sleepwalking, then. But what?
"What's happening to me?" I said in a small voice.
Two hands reached back to me, clasping each of mine and squeezing.
"You will be okay, River," Luca promised me. "We are here with you."
But his words did little to reassure me. If the problem was inside my own head, how could they help? A sense of cold dread crawled in my belly.
Luca must have seen the expression on my face. "Theo, sit in the back with her."
Theo didn't hesitate, and I moved the book to the floor to make room for him at my side. He wrapped an arm around me and I burrowed in close.
None of us spoke as Luca pulled out onto the road again, his foot on the accelerator a bit heavier than it had been before. I closed my eyes, letting myself get lost in Theo's familiar scent, hearing the thump of his heartbeat beneath the rough cotton of his shirt. My own heart was pounding, my hands shaking so badly that I had to clasp them together to keep the tremors from radiating through my entire body. The rubies on my ring bit painfully into my flesh, but I welcomed the pain. At least it was something besides darkness.
"Breathe," Theo murmured into my hair. "Breathe, unicorn."
I forced air into my nose, out through my mouth. I am here, I chanted to myself. I could feel the floorboards of the car beneath my feet, feel the softness of my socks as I wiggled my toes. Theo's arm was warm and solid around my back, his hand gently stroking the side of my head. I am here. I am here.
But where had I gone?
I bit my lip and thought back. I knew what I had heard when I lost consciousness: Luca's voice, comforting and warm; the soft hum of the car's engine; the occasional gust of wind outside. But what had I felt?
Pain? No.
Heat? I tried to remember if it had been anything like what I'd experienced when I’d found the book. But all I could remember was darkness.
With a small sound of frustration, I pushed myself away from Theo.
"Hey." He looked at me, his forehead wrinkled with concern.
"What was I doing?" I asked. "I need to know. Exactly."
Theo and Luca exchanged a glance in the rearview mirror. "You sat up very straight," Theo said carefully, running a hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was trying to be precise. "No—before that. I didn't realize something was wrong for a minute. Luca said that Julian would help, and you didn't reply."
