He rested his chin on my head and rubbed my back as he kept staring out over the snow.
“I’ve seen things, too,” he murmured in my ear. “I know you fade and we have to leave and he’s still just a kid but you’ve still alive and I’d give anything to take care of you. I have to hope that he’ll understand that when he’s older. I know that you live and we make it back somehow. Everything else between then and now…we have to make the best, Mar. We have to do the best we can with what we’ve got.”
“You sound like me,” I muttered into his jacket. Thom laughed quietly.
“Well, I guess maybe I’ve listened and learned something.” He kissed my temple, then released me, giving me a long, hard look. “How are you feeling right now?”
“Tired,” I said. “Worried. A little scared. I don’t know what’s happening to me, Thom. I know it scares Phelan—probably would scare him worse if he knew the actual extent of what’s going on.”
“What is going on?”
“Just what I said. More blackouts, feeling sick or woozy or passing out after I’ve been working on the wards. Nothing’s right, everything’s wrong, but I don’t know how to fix it.”
He nodded, expression grim. “We’ll have to say something eventually.”
“J.T. knows,” I said quietly. “Neve knows. They’ll probably help, but even they don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Did you ask Thordin?”
My nose wrinkled. “He’s got enough going on right now and I’m not sure how helpful he’d be anyway.”
“We won’t know until we say something.”
“I’d rather ask the ghost,” I said, meaning Eriu. “Even Leinth.”
“I hadn’t thought of her,” Thom said softly. He rested his chin on top of my head again and gathered me to his chest. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
We do. Somehow…
