Page 150 of Brambles and Bellflowers
“Stay here,” he ordered, not even looking at me.
Then he was gone.
I pushed myself up on unsteady legs, swallowing the dizziness. My body felt wrong—too heavy and too light at once. My hands trembled.
Something in me knew before I turned my head.
The Snallygaster was still coming.
Even with Titus and Damen attacking it from both sides—it was trying to break past them.
Trying to get to me.
A low, shuddering breath left my lips.
Why?
I barely realized I had stepped back until my heel hit the base of a tree. The bark bit into my palms, grounding me for a brief moment, but my mind was slipping.
“Bianca?” Julian’s voice pulled me back. He’d moved beside me, and his gaze flicked from me to the Snallygaster, then back.
His expression changed as Damen stepped back to my side.
“Something’s wrong with her,” Julian told him.
“No shit,” Damen replied. “She’s been off since she got here.”
“That’s not it.” Julian’s grip tightened around his weapon. “She’s not reacting.”
Damen glanced at me then. The Snallygaster shrieked, twisting unnaturally, still trying to force its way through past Miles and Titus.
Julian’s tone sharpened. “It’s not attacking her.”
Damen went still.
“It’s trying to reach her,” Julian added.
A roar echoed through the area, and my head pounded in response. The pain reverberated through my skull as my stomach recoiled. I doubled over in pain and could distantly hear Julian and Damen’s voices exclaiming in dual sounds of alarm, but I couldn’t feel them, feel anything, outside of the exploding pain radiating from my chest.
It moved outward, a hurricane of compressed emotions finally breaking free, and the sharp wind tore through the space with a shriek.
There was a short silence, and I lowered my hands from my ears, cracking open my eyes to see that I was now alone. Damen and Julian—even as they returned to their feet—had been thrown from me, and the battle formation quickly reformed.
The Snallygaster was nearest to me and didn’t hesitate to resume its stampeding attack.
“Bianca!” I looked up as Miles’s shout reached me from across the clearing. His relaxed features had shifted intosomething fierce and wild, and even as the others turned to race between us, his mouth pressed in a measure of grim determination, and his eyes narrowed.
He moved his attention down, and the earth shook as he knelt and pressed his hand to it.
Before I could fully realize what he was doing, the ground beneath my feet shifted, and I screamed as I fell until the cool, moist soil pressed against my skin. The sound of the battle faded as the earth closed over my head.
I expected panic, but my racing heartbeat began to calm until there was stillness. A pulse throbbed through the earth like a steady, ancient heartbeat. I was no longer floating, falling through my thoughts.
For the first time, my mind was quiet.
Colors—sharp, bright, happy—began to bleed through the darkness. A classroom. Paper decorations swayed from the ceiling. The scent of glue and cheap crayons filled my nose.
My feet barely touched the ground, and I was holding a crayon so hard it should have snapped.
