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Her brain didn’t want to work, filled with fuzzy thoughts that danced about the peripheral of her awareness and mucked up clear reasoning. It was far too easy to be emotional and swept away here, too easy to forget she had a physical body waiting for her beyond this place.

She tried to cling to that thought—that she didn’t belong here—but her thoughts scattered more rapidly. She staggered. “Jael,” she began, not recognizing her own voice, “I think something’s wrong.”

But shadows closed in on her and he shrank away from her until he was a tiny silhouette in a pinpoint of light against blue-black darkness.

Then even that tiny bit of starlight disappeared and left her floating in an empty night sky.

She woke with a groan. Judging by the pain coursing through her, she’d been returned to her reality, and it didn’t feel good at all. She blinked and tried to gather the frayed thoughts and memories to make sense of where she was and why she hurt so much.

She remembered light and color and safety, but this place of hard stone and deep darkness possessed none of those things.

Her fingers grazed the cold stone floor as her brain recalled where she was and how she had gotten there.

“Ow,” she whispered.

A form stirred beside her, warm fingers brushing the back of her hand in a feather-light touch. “Are you hurt?”

The husky murmur sent a shiver through her, and she pulled her hand tight against her skirt. “I’m a little sore. Did we lose consciousness?”

He stirred again and exhaled a heavy breath. “I suspect so.”

Her fingers tingled, as if she’d been out in the cold for too long. She dug them deeper into her skirt, hoping the pain would soon subside.

It didn’t.

Jael shifted beside her, his breathing shallow and rough. Moments later, his runestone sprang back to life, filling the storage room with comforting color and light. “I think we were out for over an hour.”

She groaned and tried to sit up. He still crouched on the ground and reached to help her. Anrid tensed beneath his touch, but he withdrew as soon as she was perched on her sitting bones.

“Thank you.” She ran a hand through her tangled bangs and loosening braid. “It didn’t seem like we were unconscious for that long.”

His features remained impassive. “Light runes expire if I don’t repeat them every hour.”

Oh.

He wasn’t just guessing, then.

“I suppose magic doesn’t have to abide by rules,” she laughed as she wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her chest. She didn’t trust herself to stand yet.

“It has its own rules, for sure.” He propped his forearm on his bent knee and appeared in no hurry to leave. Perhaps his muscles were feeling as limp as her own. She rather feared she would fall flat on her face if she tried to use them.

The seconds ticked by with aching slowness, while neither of them spoke or made eye contact. A painful awkwardness wrapped around them. She suspected, under other circumstances, she and Jael could have been very good friends. The best sort of friends.

He certainly didn’t seem opposed to that.

She sneaked a look at him from under her lashes. He sat still, other than a repetitive clench, release, and flex of the fingers on the hand draped closest to her. She found the movement mesmerizing. Clench, release, flex. Clench, release, flex.

What was he thinking about?

She pretended to busy herself with straightening the beads on the front of her apron. Shades, she didn’t want to know what he was thinking. What a foolish thing for her to be thinking.

She needed to get out of here before she started thinking other things that would be even more foolish.

“What were you doing in the library?”

His question halted her escape plans to a stuttering halt.

“In the library? Oh, yes, of course.” She laughed weakly. “I was looking for the children. Your brother decided we should play Hide and Seek.”