She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, resting her hand on the partial skeleton.

And then, she reached.

At first she felt nothing beyond the bones under her palm. But she imagined herself reaching further, deeper, past the bird and the case and the desk, plunging her hand down into cold, empty space.

Her lungs began to ache. The chill spread through her fingers and up her arms, sharp and biting, and when she breathed out she could feel the plume of cold, like fog, on her lips. Light danced—far off and faint —behind her eyes, and her fingers brushed something, the barest hint of a thread. Syd pulled gently, gingerly. She kept her eyes closed, but she could feel the small skeleton beginning to rebuild, the ripple of muscle, of skin, the blush of feathers.

Almost—

But then she pulled just a little too hard.

The thread vanished.

The fragile light behind her eyes went out.

Sydney blinked, withdrew her hand, and saw the remains of the bird,

its fragile skeleton now beyond repair. The bones—so carefully arranged in their velvet—were split and broken, the pile she’d set aside caving in, crumbling under their own weight.

She still wasn’t strong enough.

Still wasn’t ready.

When she moved to touch the bones, they fell apart, leaving only an ashy streak on the blue velvet lining, a pile of dust on her desk.

Ruined, thought Sydney, sweeping the remains into the trash.

XVIII

FOUR WEEKS AGO

MERIT CENTRAL HOSPITAL

I will ruin you.

I will ruin.

I will.

I—

Marcella opened her eyes.

She was greeted by sterile fluorescent lights, the antiseptic smell of scrubbed surfaces, and the papery thread count of hospital sheets.

Marcella knew she shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t even be alive. But her pulse registered, a wavering green line on the machine beside her head, inexorable proof that she was. She drew a deep breath, and then cringed. Her lungs and throat felt raw, her skull pounding even through the high-grade painkillers being piped into her veins.

Marcella tested her fingers and toes, rolled her head gingerly side to side with calm precision and—she commended herself—startling composure. She had long ago learned to compartmentalize her feelings, shove the inconvenient and the unbecoming into the back of her mind like an old dress in a dark closet.

Her fingers crept along the sheets, and she tried to pull herself up, but at the slightest movement she was assaulted by her own body—her bruised and broken ribs, her burned and blistered skin. Marcella had also learned to embrace the various stings and aches and sears that went hand in hand with maintaining her appearance.

But this pain put those nips and tucks, those elected inconveniences, to shame.

This pain made a home in her skin, in her bones, moved like molten fire through her blood, her limbs. But instead of cringing away, Marcella focused in.

She once had a yoga instructor who compared the mind to a house.