Page 58 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
And triumphantly endured.
For if a web of thought is tangled,
Who but us untwines?
If a memory is fading,
Who but us revives?
So we cast our rays of light
Onto what’s broken and amiss.
We fix and care, this we swear,
“By the moonbeam and the mist,” I whispered with the world, wrapping my arms around myself.
I was cold—much too cold in this space within me. A deep tremor was wrapping around my ribcage, shaking me from the toes upward, and my subconscious wasstill staring at mewith too-green eyes, and I just… needed to get out of my own head.
“Okay, Rayna.” Even Garvis’s lips were turning blue. “All you need to do is reach for your surface. Imagine yourself rising, climbing up through the mist, using the moon as a footstool to leap up and away.”
I tried to do as he said, even raising a hand to scrabble at the sky, but…
Nothing happened. Snowflakes settled in my hair, and my subconscious continued to stare at me, and the mist just swirled and swirled and swirled.
Panic sliced through my every breath at the thought that I couldn’t defy gravity. I might be trapped within the confines of my own mind if I couldn’t find a good foothold on the—
“Don’t worry, Drey,” a voice drawled beside me. “I’ve got you.”
My eyes flew open to find that Steeler had arrived on my other side and already clamped a firm hand on my elbow.
Atugfrom him, and we were soaring upward, through the mist, past the streak of moonlight.
My eyes flew openagain—this time to the real world.
To find that I’d collapsed right against his chest.
CHAPTER
19
Irighted myself instantly, stumbling back a few paces away.
Garvis, it seemed, had managed to stay upright the whole time he’d been in my mind with me, because he was observing us with quiet calculation on his own two feet as if nothing had happened.
“You shaved” fell out of my mouth as I took in Steeler’s appearance.
God of the Cosmos, that was such a stupidly obvious thing to say. But hehad, and his hair was cut back to its original length, revealing those sharp, elongated ears while a crisp, long-sleeved tunic covered all his muscles and scars.
Steeler blinked at me, then shrugged. “Felicity wouldn’t quit chasing me around with her scissors and razor until I sat down.”
I glanced over his shoulder at the monkey, who paused from scratching her armpits long enough to say, “I also got him with the witch hazel just like you asked. He whimpered like a baby, by the way.”
A snort escaped me at the thought of Coen Steeler whimpering like a baby, and Felicity gave me an appreciative flash of her teeth.
Steeler quirked a brow and breathed into my mind,I take it you didn’t get a chance to practice blockading?
I swatted at my ear, startled.
