I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, my friends are speaking to one another in low voices, but occasionally I see a glance in my direction that holds a faint shade of disappointment. Those glances turn my guilt to shame. Felicity is the only Legendborn who isn’t looking at me at all. She stands awkwardly off to the side of our group with red-rimmed eyes trained on Russ’s family. Her hands keep clenching and unclenching at her sides.

I know that look, that stance. As I watch Felicity standing there alone, struggling, the guilt and shame drain from my body. I remember what Alice did for me when my whole world had shattered overnight, when grief had obliterated me and I had no words to describe it. I remember needing someone, anyone, to acknowledge my broken pieces without trying to put me back together. Maybe I don’t know what kings do, but I can still be a friend.

I step away from Greer and approach Felicity quietly. “Hey.”

She jumps when I reach her elbow. “Hey, Bree.”

I stare at her for a moment, making space for her grief, and mine. Let it seep into that opening, settle, then surface in words. After a few seconds, I say, “There’s nothing anyone can say that will make things better.”

“No, there isn’t,” she says. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, because they’re already full of the other emotions I recognize. Anger. Resentment. And a wall, drawing itself up between us.

Once you get tired of folks offering sympathy that doesn’t fit your pain, it’s easier to draw the bridge up than it is to keep it open. Easier to stop the attempts to connect than it is to keep watching them fail.

“You…,” I begin. She looks up at me, her attention sharpened into something to cut. Something to maim. I recognize that urge, too. “You must be very, very angry.”

Her eyes widen in surprise. Then she lets a bit of that sharpness slide back into her gaze, and into her voice. “You have no idea.”

I could respond that I do, I do have an idea. But grief isn’t a competition. It’s not an identical pain that we all meet one day when death finds us. It’s a monster, personalized by our love and memories to devour us just so. Grief is suffering, tailored.

I resist the impulse to run from her, but it is strong. I see the black hole, the dark place I’ve been. The event horizon I need to avoid, because it might pull me right back in without warning.

So I offer her the most I can. “I hope the pain lets up a little soon. Gives you a… a break.”

She huffs a little. A hollow sound, edged with humor. “Yeah,” she whispers, and turns away. “Me too.”