Rohan gripped his head in anger and frustration. “Did you just, like, wake up one day and decide this? Fifer said you had some sort of fall and you weren’t making sense before you left. Are you injured? Have you taken any medicine for it?” He started pacing. “I just… I cannot fathom any of this. We had plans, Thisbe. I thought I knew you. You were my soul mate one day, and just like that, a switch flipped in your mind? Is everything we’ve had together done? Is it over? Or have you been playing me from the start?”

Thisbe reeled. She turned and grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. This was horrifying. So much worse than she could’ve imagined it. How could she go on after this was over? How could she keep pretending?

But she had to for his sake. This was so much bigger than Thisbe and Rohan. This was two worlds on the edge of disaster.

Thisbe stumbled to her balcony and opened the doors. She stood for a second as the cool night breeze caressed her face, and she looked for Quince but didn’t see him. “You need to escape,” she said softly. Then she sucked in a breath and turned, hoping her voice had been lost in the wind, because she couldn’t have him repeat that to the Revinir. “Rohan,” she said in a formal voice, “my good servant, I think you should sleep outside on the balcony and watch for the fog rolling in.” She paused. “I’ll come up with… I mean, I’ll explain your disappearance to the Revinir.”

“What? No way.”

“Rohan,” Thisbe said, her voice catching. She pointed to the balcony. “Go.”

Rohan stopped pacing. The look of hurt and despair on his face said everything. He stood for a long moment, then picked up his rucksack and walked to the balcony. At the doorway he paused to look at Thisbe. His black eyes shone from tears and starlight. “So this is over?”

Everything in Thisbe’s mind screamed “No!” She could hardly hold herself together. But the words that came out of her mouth were the last words she’d ever wanted to say in her entire life to the boy standing next to her. “It’s over.”

Rohan bowed his head. Then he went outside and dropped heavily into the lounge chair. His rucksack spilled open, and he didn’t bother to pick the items up.

Thisbe’s tears welled up. She gazed at him for one last moment, all the sorrow of the world building a permanent home inside her. Then she closed the doors.

Grasping Blindly