Page 22 of Fallen Stars

“Look, just please, please help me. I couldn’t just leave her there, and if she dies… I can’t take any more death.”

She must have betrayed a glimmer of desperation because Isra set her mouth firm and held Astra’s back legs. Merissa came to Elara’s side, gently supporting the wolf’s neck from underneath.

“Gently,” Elara murmured, her heart pounding. “Don’t give up, Astra. Please don’t give up. We’re nearly safe—nearly.”

The women finally breached the room, Merissa leaving Astra’s head in Elara’s hands as she opened the door to the bathroom.

Astra made a small whimper of pain as she was laid gently in the bathtub, her eyes looking for Elara. Elara stroked her head. “You’re going to be okay. I won’t let you go,” she whispered.

Merissa looked at her, eyes softening as Isra rifled through the inn’s cabinets.

“We need new bandages,” Elara said.

“And a cleaning potion,” Merissa added. “Being a glamour comes with its perks. I may not be a healer, but I know a lot about hiding people’s wounds.”

Isra found both. She shook the cleaning potion—a light, milky blue, before wetting a clean cloth with it.

“The blades looked nasty,” Elara said. “Rusted too. We need to make sure there’s no infection.”

She gently peeled back the bandages that she’d wrapped around Astra the night before, leaving the wounds exposed.

Isra handed the potion to Merissa. “Can you hold her down?” Merissa asked Elara.

Elara looked at the beast that weighed likely five times her size. “Sure.”

She held Astra by her head, aware that her teeth were very, very close to Elara’s face and hands. “Astra, this is only going to hurt for a moment. And then you’re going to feel so much better.”

It was as though the wolf understood her, letting out another pleading whimper. “Okay, Merissa, now.”

Merissa uncorked the stopper, pouring the lotion onto a clean cloth folded over the bathtub. With a grimace, she pressed it tentatively to the nastiest looking one on Astra’s underbelly, just one of Astra’s many wounds

The wolf growled, trying to move, but Isra launched, freezing the wolf’s paws to the tub.

“Huh, why didn’t I think of that?” Elara asked, preparing to use her shadows to pin the wolf down. But Astra was looking at her with eyes that begged for some kind of comfort. Elara’s own eyes filled with tears. “Okay,” she whispered. “No shadows.”

She began to stroke Astra’s fur as the wolf let out a howl of pain. Merissa’s hands were trembling. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I know it hurts. I know. It will be over soon, I promise.”

Elara squeezed her eyes shut, Isra’s expression calm and focused as always. The wolf let out one more howl, and then finally, Merissa was done cleaning the wounds.

“The one on her underbelly needs stitching,” Merissa said. “I have a needle and some thread in our room.”

Elara nodded. “I’ll start bandaging her other wounds up.”

She and Isra worked quietly, the two gently wrapping Astra’s shallower wounds with clean strips of cloth.

“So,” Isra said quietly. “You seem a little more…you.”

Elara stopped what she was doing. “Is maiming and murdering people ‘me’?”

Isra chuckled. “More than wasting your days drugged up, definitely.”

Elara looked at her for a moment before a laugh escaped her lips. An actual laugh. Isra looked startled to see it for a second. And then, suddenly, Elara couldn’t stop. Another laugh bubbled up, and then another, until Isra began to laugh too, the two cackling as Astra looked between them warily.

Elara’s laughs continued, her stomach hurting from it, throat rasping. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made the sound. On and on she did, until she was taking great gasping breaths, the laughter becoming painful until it turned into sobs. Elara clutched her stomach, tears rolling down her face as she wept.

“Hey,” Isra said in alarm, pulling her into an embrace. “Hey, Elara, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Elara sobbed. “No part of this is okay. Enzo isn’t with me. And I… I killed people. Something is wrong with me. Gem was the first life I ever took, and I didn’t even… I didn’t even feel anything about it. Didn’t even flinch. And last night, I didn’t either.”