And then it was over. Cami’s eyes flew open, and all that lay before her were the thin white walls of the cocoon.

She was trapped. Claustrophobia took hold. Cami gasped for air, but all that came in was that strange, viscous fluid. She was submerged. With what strength she could muster, she banged against the cocoon walls, prayed for them to give.

Silhouettes danced on the other side, so faint Cami wondered if she’d imagined them. But one grew closer, and closer…

A long, bluish hand burst through the cocoon like it was made of paper. Trintio.

Cami took his hand, and he pulled. The cocoon fell around her, and she stumbled into the blinding light of the castle, every step accompanied by a sickening squelch. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the glow of it all burned into her eyelids. Trintio came to a stop, and she practically fell against him.

“Whoa, whoa, it’s okay,” Trintio murmured. He patted her head, grimacing at the dampness of her hair. “We’re going to wash you off. We--”

“Explain!” Cami blurted out. It was the only word she could manage. She felt herself teetering at the edge of nonverbal. Who wouldn’t be, after everything? “Explain… that!”

Trintio paled. Like she’d just driven a stake through his heart. “Oh, you didn’t see what happened last summer, did you?”

Cami nodded.

“I can explain,” Trintio said, “to the best of my ability. But are you sure you don’t want to take a shower and do some deep breathing first?”

“Explain,” Cami growled.

“Okay, okay.” Trintio sighed. “We tried awakening you over the summer, so you'd have a head start and all, but it went south. The cult got involved, somehow, and someone died. So, we started over. Made you and everyone forget everything, until you had a better support system--the other girls. The other… Freakspotters. I’ll be real, I didn’t even know about most of this until right after we met.” He chuckled, suddenly sheepish. “It wasn’t my department until then.”

And that of all things was what broke her. Cami’s legs crumpled beneath her, and a low, tremulous sob escaped her lips. She’d been happy, not remembering. She’d barely even remembered not remembering.

Trintio kept talking. “Abigail didn’t die at your hands, but she did die because your powers rendered the other partygoers useless.” When Cami shrank further into herself, he went on, “Listen, that’s on us. We threw you into this prematurely. I’ve been told you were a liability at best, and a hazard at worst. We did what we did to prevent more accidents. Everything we could.”

The words meant nothing, echoed uselessly off the castle walls. Cami curled up, knees to her head, tears pooling in her lap, shoulders shaking with hiccuping sobs.

Everything they could, and someone’s still dead because of me. Someone I cared about.

Trintio sighed. And then, he did something Cami couldn’t have expected: he bent down and hugged her.

“I think this time will be different,” he murmured. “You have more control. We have a support system in place. And Helena gave you some kind of grounding item, didn’t she?”

Helena. Just the girl’s name broke through, set Cami’s hands into motion. She reached for her necklace, the charm Helena had made. The charm Helena, her girlfriend, had made just for her.

The guitar strings were a cool, familiar texture. She ran her fingers along them, forced herself to breathe. In and out, in and out.

“There we go,” Trintio said softly. “Are you okay?”

Before, Cami would’ve said yes without mulling it over. It was the kind of quick, harmless lie that spared her awkward conversation.

But before she could say it, something stopped her. A lump in her throat--no, something worse. Something that burned.

“Judging from the look on your face, you just about told your first lie,” Trintio remarked. “It’s okay if you’re not okay, Cami.”

Cami shook her head. “I’m not okay,” she croaked. “Can I lay down somewhere?”

~

In the end, they agreed Cami wasn’t ready for the trip back. That left her with two options: stay in the castle, or bunk with Dee.

Cami had chosen the latter without a second’s hesitation. She had no interest in being anywhere near the castle for a long, long time.

Dee, meanwhile, was less than eager to house her overnight.

“My fiancee is coming over,” she’d whined to Trintio. “It’ll be so awkward.”

But he, thankfully, hadn’t budged, and now Cami lay in something vaguely resembling a sleeping bag on the living room floor, staring up at a ceiling dappled with constellations of shining stones.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Dee asked. She and her partner--a young woman covered in brown spots named Merry--were about to head off to the former’s room. “That whole cocoon thing must’ve been tiring.”

“I’m good,” Cami mumbled.

“Whatever you say.” Dee linked arms with Merry, but instead of heading off, just went on, “Y’know, it’s okay if you need stuff. I mean, Merry here, she came from the Witchlands, and her country had just gone through this horrible war at the wrath of a demigod--tell you what, that’s why I want to settle down in Walder, no wars--and it took me practically begging her to let me so much as feed her.”

Cami grunted in acknowledgement.

“It was pretty gruesome, y’know. The demigod, he’d been poisoned by his own magic, so people like Merry, they…”

As Dee prattled on, Cami drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.