Saba slid her hands up the blanket, close to his neck, and I wanted to mentally scream at her to stop. Because, just as I anticipated, he abruptly stepped back from her touch.

And, just like that, the connection, the intimacy, was gone.

Saba looked like she might cry, but she didn’t give him long to see it as she rushed past him and headed toward the door.

“Are you moving the horse?” he asked, going after her. “I can do that myself.”

She turned on her heel in the sand and snapped her fingers before pointing at him.

“What happened to pointing being rude—?”

She rolled her eyes, moving him easily past the threshold with one hand, and shut the door behind her.

I burst out laughing. “I’ve never seen someone handle you so thoroughly.”

“Shut up, Andi,” he said, throwing his blanket at me, probably because it was all that was on hand.

I caught it and rolled it up, throwing it back. “I can feel the connection between you two. Are you sure you don’t want a second chance at this?”

Jember was silent for a moment, wrapping the blanket around him again. “Where can I get this off?” he asked, glancing down at his leg.

“Um…” I swallowed my frustration so I could think. “Down that hall, the first big room. It’s a game room with couches.”

He nodded and headed in that direction.

I sighed and went back upstairs to check on Magnus. He was sleeping peacefully. I envied him. It was a sin, but I did.

I lay on top of the covers to watch him sleep. When he woke he wouldn’t remember a thing. Not the screams, or the taste of blood. Not the fear and chaos. He’d just be weirdly adorable Magnus and I would be … haunted. I’d let a human being be torn to shreds. Maybe there was nothing I could’ve done about it, but I felt it anyway, deeper than the scar on my face. Magnus thought he was a monster? At least he wasn’t aware of what he was doing. At least it wasn’t him causing the pain.

I, on the other hand …

I let myself cry for thirty seconds, and then closed my eyes and shoved the horror of last night deep where the rest of my trauma lived … so deep it only lived in nightmares. There was just no room for it anywhere else.

Not if I wanted to keep surviving.

I heard the sheets shift, and opened my eyes to Magnus stretching, like a cat in the sun.

“Good morning,” he sang.

“It’s the afternoon, now.”

“What am I doing in your bed?” he asked, looking around the room. He blushed, gaping. “Did we…?”

I rolled my eyes, but was blushing same as him. “No.”

“Good. If we ever do I want to remember it.”