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I throw my head back and wail as my Grace and wings are ripped away.
It only takes moments.
I turn my head, panting and sickened, to find charred, bloody stumps. Singed feathers float around me, and I stand, numbness spreading from my chest.
Robe in a puddle at my feet, I turn and step around the demons still beating Axe.
And I leave.
“Chonk,” I whisper as I rifle through Dashel’s drawers for something to wear.
He appears immediately, sitting on the dresser. “My deepest sympathies,” he says, staring above my shoulders at the mess of burnt feathers and clotted blood.
“Can you take me to Celestus?” I ask in someone else’s voice. A flatter, thinner version of mine.
Unenhanced by magic. Because there’s no magic within me.
“Me and another?” My fingers tremble around the vial as I pull a shirt over my head.
“I can.”
“From here?”
The cat nods. “I’m not bound by the limits you are.”
“Oh fuck, Dove, baby, what happened?” Bastian says from the doorway. He’s at my side in three strides. He tries to hug me, but I step away.
“Your wings.”
The heartache in his voice is suffocating. I’m drowning in it. “I have to get to Celestus with Gael’s body.” My voice warbles on the last word. “There’s a chance the healers can?—”
“Yes, good. Let’s do it. But, Dove, what happened to your wings.”
I swallow a sob. “Is he still…”
Bastian knows what I’m asking without needing to say his awful name. “Enzo and Dash dragged him back to the palace. He won’t be back.”
I keep my eyes on Bastian’s chest. “I can’t go back into that room.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He reaches for my shoulder and again, I back away. “Please, Dove. Tell me what happened.” Bastian’s voice breaks just as mine had.
I can’t look at him. “He broke my heart,” I whisper, then turn to find pants.
“Dove, I don’t know what that means,” he says, pleading me to let him in. To tell him more.
I can’t, or I won’t be able to keep going. “I need to get him back,” I repeat.
Bastian sighs. “Keep her safe until I’m back,” he says to Chonk.
“She’s in the deadened void of loss. Nothing can hurt her more than she already is,” Chonk says to Bastian.
“Still. Eat anything that tries.”
It doesn’t take long for Bastian to return with Gael’s—with Gael.
“Take us to the healing center, if possible.”
Chonk’s fur rises on his back. “Madam, I could teleport you to the head of a pin if you so desired.”
