chapter 9- don't say her name again

Because she already heard you.

The fake blood was still on the kitchen floor.

Mira had laughed about it for approximately four minutes before the colour started leaving her face in a way that had nothing to do with the prank. She was sitting on the couch now with a glass of water she hadn't touched, her legs pulled up beneath her, rubbing slow circles at her temple.

Elias had cleaned up the glass quietly. He kept glancing at her.

Everyone kept glancing at her.

"You can all stop," Mira said without looking up. "I can feel you staring."

"We're not staring," Elias said.

"You're definitely staring."

"We're just..." He searched for the word. "Monitoring."

"That's worse."

Caelith sat in the armchair across from her and tried to look like someone who was not thinking about a tall feminine silhouette standing motionless in the rain beyond the glass. She failed at this comprehensively.

Zara had not sat down since they came back inside. She stood near the far wall with her arms crossed and her eyes moving slowly between Mira and the glass doors in a pattern that was beginning to make Caelith's skin prickle.

Outside the rain continued. Quiet and persistent. The kind that settles in for the night and means it.

Elias's phone rang at half past eleven.

He looked at the screen. Something crossed his face that he tried to hide and didn't fully manage.

"Give me a second," he said, stepping toward the hallway.

He came back four minutes later with his jacket already in his hand and the expression of someone who had just lost an argument with themselves.

"I have to go," he said. "My sister. She's at the hospital, it's not serious but she's alone and…"

"Go," Caelith said immediately.

"I don't want to leave when Mira is….."

"Elias." She stood and put a hand briefly on his arm. "Go. We're fine."

He looked at Mira. Then at Zara, who gave him nothing.

Then back at Caelith with an expression that said very clearly he did not believe her and was going to have questions later.

"First thing tomorrow," he said. "I'll be back."

"We'll be here."

He hugged Mira carefully, said something quiet to her that made her smile despite everything, and then he was gone. The sound of his car swallowed slowly by the rain until there was nothing left of it.

The house settled into a different kind of quiet with three people in it instead of four.

Smaller somehow.

Mira stared at the space where Elias had been standing.

Then she pressed two fingers against her temple and winced.

"The headache is back," she said quietly.

Zara's attention sharpened immediately.

Mira noticed. She looked between the two of them with the careful eyes of someone who had been patient long enough.

"Okay," she said. "Someone needs to tell me what is actually going on."

Silence.

"I said a name I don't know at dinner and everyone went pale. There was apparently someone standing outside in the rain. Elias has been treating me like I might shatter since the kitchen and you two—" she gestured between Caelith and Zara "—have been having entire conversations without saying a word." She set her water down. "What am I missing."

Caelith looked at her.

Mira had always been like this. Direct without being unkind. The kind of person who asked hard questions because she genuinely wanted the answer rather than to prove a point.

She deserved the truth.

Or as much of it as Caelith understood.

"I've been having a strange few months," she said carefully. "Some things have happened that I haven't told anyone about. I didn't want to drag you into it."

Mira looked at her for a long moment.

"You look like you haven't slept properly in weeks," she said. "I noticed on the phone. That's why I suggested this trip." A pause. "I'm already in it aren't I."

Caelith couldn't deny it. Not tonight. Not with what was standing outside in the rain.

"There are people who think I'm connected to something," she said. "Something old. They want to find it and they think I'm the way to get there. Some of them want to use me for that. Some of them want to make sure I never help anyone find it." She chose each word carefully, the way you pick a path across unstable ground. "I don't fully understand it yet. But it's real. Everything that's been happening is real."

Mira was quiet.

"And her?" She looked at Zara.

"Complicated," Caelith said.

"Of course." Mira almost smiled. Then she pressed her fingers to her temple again. Harder this time. Her brow creased with something that wasn't just pain. Something slightly more distant than pain.

"Mira." Caelith leaned forward slightly. "What does it feel like."

"Like pressure," Mira said slowly. "Like something pressing from the inside." She paused. "And like I keep almost hearing something. At the edge of it. Like a voice I can't quite..." She stopped. Shook her head. "I'm probably just tired."

Zara pushed off the wall.

"Don't say that name again," she said. Quiet and absolute. "The one from dinner."

Mira frowned. "Why."

"Just don't."

"Zara," Caelith said.

"I mean it." She looked at Mira directly. Something in her expression shifted into something that was almost, almost, concern. "Please."

Mira looked between them both.

Something in her face changed. The question she was about to ask died before it reached her mouth. She nodded slowly instead.

"Okay," she said softly.

The rain tapped against the glass.

Far beyond the dark shoreline, lightning flickered silently behind the clouds.

Nobody looked at the windows.