you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody
The sound of the glass shattering makes her flinch—not for fear, but because even now, it reminds her of bones breaking, of something delicate coming undone. The air shifts in the wake of it, Jack’s magic catching the shards before they can bite her feet, water still held in a trembling suspension like a memory too fragile to let go. But Flora barely registers the wonder of it. Her attention is slow to return, her thoughts still wrapped in the lingering horror, wrapped in the truth she cannot outrun, even as Jack tries to hold the broken pieces together without her asking.
She shifts beneath the whisper of his hand like a leaf turned by the tide, slow and weightless, her body angling just enough for him to see it all. The cruel artistry of Dahlia’s claws is revealed in full: the matching arcs, each one carved with mirrored precision, as if the Reaper had been writing something into her flesh—something cruel and final.
When she does look up, her eyes see the sunlit treetops instead of Jack’s sea-eyed stare; the dappled safety of the Greatwood where she had meant to spend the day drinking tea with Niki. Her voice is a hush, barely more than the breath between waves, but it carries something sharp beneath the softness. “She saw me,” she says, her gaze dipping again as if ashamed to admit it. “Even invisible—she knew. And when I ran…” Her throat tightens, but she pushes through it. “When I used the compass, when I crossed the world—she still followed. Like she was tied to me. Like it didn’t matter where I went or how fast I ran.”
Panic flutters inside her chest again, wide-winged and cold, and though she tries to still it, the tremor in her hands returns, running like thread through her limbs. She inhales slowly, eyes flickering shut for a moment as if she might find steadiness in the dark behind her lids, but it doesn’t come. Only the memory of her failure lingers—too heavy to shake, too loud to silence. When she speaks again, it’s quieter, threaded with something deeper and harder than fear—something closer to guilt. “I’m glad you weren’t there.”
She opens her eyes again, not quite meeting his now, but somewhere just past him, as if watching a version of him that had been. A version that might have stepped in front of her for the second time, and would have surely died for it. “If you hadn’t left…” The words are barely more than a whisper, but in her thoughts, they ring loud and waterlogged. If you hadn’t left me, you’ve have died again.
Jack had chosen right, in the end. At least Flora could finally see that now.
She shifts beneath the whisper of his hand like a leaf turned by the tide, slow and weightless, her body angling just enough for him to see it all. The cruel artistry of Dahlia’s claws is revealed in full: the matching arcs, each one carved with mirrored precision, as if the Reaper had been writing something into her flesh—something cruel and final.
When she does look up, her eyes see the sunlit treetops instead of Jack’s sea-eyed stare; the dappled safety of the Greatwood where she had meant to spend the day drinking tea with Niki. Her voice is a hush, barely more than the breath between waves, but it carries something sharp beneath the softness. “She saw me,” she says, her gaze dipping again as if ashamed to admit it. “Even invisible—she knew. And when I ran…” Her throat tightens, but she pushes through it. “When I used the compass, when I crossed the world—she still followed. Like she was tied to me. Like it didn’t matter where I went or how fast I ran.”
Panic flutters inside her chest again, wide-winged and cold, and though she tries to still it, the tremor in her hands returns, running like thread through her limbs. She inhales slowly, eyes flickering shut for a moment as if she might find steadiness in the dark behind her lids, but it doesn’t come. Only the memory of her failure lingers—too heavy to shake, too loud to silence. When she speaks again, it’s quieter, threaded with something deeper and harder than fear—something closer to guilt. “I’m glad you weren’t there.”
She opens her eyes again, not quite meeting his now, but somewhere just past him, as if watching a version of him that had been. A version that might have stepped in front of her for the second time, and would have surely died for it. “If you hadn’t left…” The words are barely more than a whisper, but in her thoughts, they ring loud and waterlogged. If you hadn’t left me, you’ve have died again.
Jack had chosen right, in the end. At least Flora could finally see that now.
