Celeste
Allissa led me into a quiet alcove and sat me down on a stone bench.
“Celeste.” Her palm rested on her own chest. “Are you feeling a deep, sinking sadness? Right here?”
“You are feeling it too?”
“I don’t know whose it is. Yours or mine. Could be the bond echoing it back to me. Could be something else.”
“I think it’s homesickness.” I wiped under my eyes. “I’ve never been away from Aderian this long. Maybe it just caught up to me?”
“Probably that,” Allissa said, too kindly.
I breathed in deeply. I breathed out. I shook my head once, hard, and pushed the feeling down under a lid.
“You were with Darien again?”
I snapped my head around.
“How did you—“
“You just told me.”
I laughed in spite of myself. She was grinning at me.
“All right.” Allissa tucked her skirt under her on
