“Ava?” I said as I approached her. She looked like a frightened animal, ready to bolt at the slightest movement.
“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. There were smears of blood underneath her eyes, where she must have wiped her cheeks. “I—I thought he didn’t want to see me again, and Xander was right there, and I—”
“It’s all right,” I said, although it was anything but. I was queasy and barely able to keep from being sick at the sight of all the carnage, but I turned away from it, focusing on Ava. “We should get you cleaned up.”
I helped her to the bathroom while Henry continued his inspection. Once I was sure she wasn’t going to pass out, I found her a robe to wear and busied myself with washing the blood off her skin and out of her hair. We were both quiet. I didn’t want to know the details, and she was too shaken to say anything. By the time she was dry, I poked my head back in the bedroom, averting my eyes from the horrific scene on the bed.
“What do you want me to do with her?” I said.
Henry hadn’t moved since I’d left. “The guards will escort her to another room, where she will stay until we have decided if she deserves punishment.”
I paled. “Is this—is this another test?”
He was by my side in an instant, faster than anyone could possibly move. “No,” he said. “Xander has passed. Now come— Ava will be taken care of.”
Shielding me from having to look at Xander’s body, Henry led me toward the door. As we left, a woman dressed in a uniform entered, but I hardly noticed her.
“Where are we going?” I said, breathing in a lungful of clean air once we reached the hallway.
“To see Theo.” He guided me around the corner, and I followed without protest. My stomach lurched with the thought of what condition Theo might have been in, but I refused to think about it. For all I knew, he was fine.
But the moment we stepped into his chamber, it was obvious he was anything but. Ella stood at her brother’s bedside, her face drawn and her hands trembling. When Henry and I entered, she glared at me, and I stopped a foot into the doorway.
“How is he?” said Henry, standing at the end of Theo’s bed. He was unconscious.
“There’s a shallow wound in his chest that worries me, but everything else is superficial. He’s lost a lot of blood though,” said Ella, her voice rough.
“Will he wake up soon?” There was no compassion or worry in Henry’s voice. Instead it was hollow, and that emptiness scared me more than anything else had that morning.
Ella shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Will he be able to handle the pain if I wake him up?”
Both of us stared at him. I searched for any trace of the Henry I’d kissed the night before, but he was no longer there. A very large part of me was relieved; this cold shell wasn’t someone I wanted to fall for. But another part wondered which one was really him.
“Y-yes,” said Ella, averting her gaze after several seconds. “He’ll manage.”
Even I could hear the uncertainty in her voice, but apparently that was all the confirmation Henry needed. He let go of my hand and took a step closer to the bed, towering over it.
A moment later, without any pretense or sign that something had changed, Theo groaned. His eyes were so swollen he could barely crack them open, and he coughed weakly. There was a rattling sound in his chest that made me wince.
“What happened?” said Henry coolly.
Theo struggled to reply, opening and shutting his mouth several times. “Ava?”
“She’s gone,” said in Ella with a surprisingly tender voice. “You’ll never have to see her again.”
Instead of being comforted by this, Theo’s eyes widened, and he struggled to sit up. “No,” he gasped, and even from across the room I could tell how much pain it caused him. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—”
“She is still here,” said Henry, and Ella whirled around, stricken. “Xander is gone.”
Theo slumped back on the bed, his eyes squeezed shut. “He attacked me,” he mumbled. “I came in to wish Ava a Merry Christmas, and I found them together. Xander—he must’ve forgotten the rules. Thought I was going to fight him. He pulled out his sword and swung at me, and—I had to fight back.”
He was wheezing. Why Henry was putting him through this when he could have easily questioned him once he was feeling better, I didn’t know—better yet, why couldn’t Henry heal him like he’d healed me? Somehow I doubted his abilities were limited to ankles.
“Calm yourself,” said Henry, nodding to Ella, who put a cup to Theo’s lips. He drank, although most of it splashed on his chest. Ella mopped it up methodically with a towel, as if this were something she was used to doing, though her brow was furrowed deeply. Regardless of how little he’d swallowed, whatever it was worked quickly. A few seconds later, Theo relaxed again.
“Is that your story then? That you had no ill intentions toward Xander, and that he was the aggressor? You were merely protecting yourself?”
“And Ava,” said Theo, his eyes fluttering shut. “I thought he was going after Ava.”
Henry waited while Theo fell back asleep. Once his breathing had steadied, Henry moved toward me and set his hand on my back, guiding me out of the room.
“Is he telling the truth?” I said.
Henry looked at me, his expression still void of any trace of the humanity I’d seen the night before. “What do you think?”
I swallowed, feeling as if I’d suddenly dived headfirst into the middle of a deep lake, the surface nowhere within sight. “I think I need to talk to Ava.”
Henry let me go into the room alone, although he and two guards stood immediately outside the door, undoubtedly able to hear everything we said. I didn’t care though—getting the truth out of Ava was my top priority, not her privacy. If Theo was being honest, then she hadn’t really done anything wrong, had she? But Xander was gone, and that was something that couldn’t be ignored.
She lay in the middle of a large bed, her knees drawn to her chest. I gingerly sat on the edge of the mattress, reaching out to touch her hand.
“Are you okay?” The answer was obvious, but it was the only thing I could think of to say.
“No,” she said in a choked voice. “Xander’s dead.”
“He was already dead,” I said as gently as I could. “He just passed into the next level of things, that’s all.”