Arwen's POV
I am across the table before the thought finishes forming.
Not to grab her, not to do anything specific. Just to close the distance between us because the silver light in my hands flares the moment Maya says those words and the nosebleed stops at the same time, and that connection is not a coincidence and I need to understand it before I do anything else.
I crouch beside her chair and look at her face and the fear in her eyes is entirely her own, clear and present and not the divided quality of Elena's expression during her worst episodes. Maya is here. Maya is in this moment and aware of it and the nosebleed was a signal, not a takeover.
"How long have you known something was wrong," I say.
"I didn't know it was wrong," she says. The researcher in her is already working,
