“It’s nothing,” I say, hoping that Ezra won’t see through the lie.
His eyes are wide and unfocused as he stares down at the scar on my wrist, his hand holding my forearm tightly.
“Nothing…” he repeats, his voice slow and slurred, as if he’s in a trance-like state, suddenly intoxicated, or drunk.
Drunk… on what?
For a moment a fragment of my dreams comes back to me unbidden - Ezra lying on the thorny funeral pyre along with the other six princes of St. Selaphiel’s Academy, wearing a bloodied crown of golden thorns, a strange symbol carved into his exposed chest. In the nightmare he looked like he was in a deep sleep, or unconscious, hovering at the threshold of death’s door. Or perhaps he was in a trance - just like the one he’s fallen into right now.
Whatever’s going on with me - the
