Thirteen

GIDEON

BUT then, I feel her.

She is back, talking to me, calling my name, and piling more blankets on me.

I am shivering so hard.

“Chi-Chiara…? You’re… ba-back.”

“I’m moving the couch nearer the fire so you can get more heat,” she tells me.

I think I feel the couch… move.

I open my eyes. I try. I can feel heat shooting out of them, electricity zinging through my skin. I see her, her hair rising in the atmosphere as her hand guided the couch.

She isn’t lifting the couch and me with her hands, of course, as I think is going to do at first. That is ridiculous.

She is using magick to lift the couch and me up, and move us toward the fireplace.

“Cool…” I whisper. “Chiara…” I call when I see how scared she looks in the light from the fire in the fireplace.

I am scaring her.

I close my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Chiara…” I whisper next. I am clearly delirious, like going through two separate awareness… aware of what is happening outside, but is conscious, too, of what is happening inside that place