Her hands stayed pressed to his chest, red to the wrist, and she did not breathe.
Across the hall, Alice raised the short sword over Finn's throat.
Marcus was too far, down a hand, swaying. Saoirse was on her elbows, ten feet short, dragging herself through blood that kept lying about whose it was. The circlet on Maeve's brow pulsed once more, broken and thin. The silk on the walls swelled and settled. The statues bowed.
The room belonged to Alice, and everyone in it knew.
The blade started down.
♢♢♢♢
Cold touched James's cheek.
Water.
He was lying on his back, and there was water moving against the side of his face, shallow and slow, and he was not drowning in it. Under him was a surface that made no sense to his hands when he pressed against it. Solid like stone. Giving like water. Both at once, depending on whether he was paying attention.
