Two days passed like this, in uncertainty, and the men took turns sitting in Leonie's room, watching her every tiny movement. All except Xavier and Dorian. The former still didn't trust the girl, and only his loyalty to Dorian kept him here; the latter only visited when she was asleep or unconscious.
On the third evening in the house, almost the entire group sat around the newly repaired table, wearing equally troubled expressions, when Nir skidded into the dining room and turned toward Dorian in a panic.
"Something's wrong with Leonie…" he didn't even manage to finish his sentence before Dorian shot up from his chair and flashed past him.
He burst into the room so violently he almost broke the door, and in the next heartbeat he was beside the girl. The others were right on his heels, even Xavier squeezed himself into the tiny space.
"I don't know what's happening to her," Nir panted into Dorian's ear, but the man could only stand there, frozen, staring down at her. Leonie's eyes had rolled back, staring blankly into nothing, her whole body arched in a taut bow, her mouth open in a silent scream that wouldn't leave her throat.
"It's starting," Filarion whispered softly. For days they had been debating how long it would take before the girl completely lost control and the magic burst out of her.
"To the Abyss with boundaries," Aeson shouted from the back. "Do something already!"
Dorian shot a worried look over his shoulder. Leonie had quite categorically declared she did not want him interfering with this, and as hard as it had been, he had kept his distance from her and her mind. But watching her suffer like this shook his resolve. If he dove into her mind now and she survived, she would likely never speak to him again.
"Damn it," he hissed, grabbing her hand and sending his magic toward Leonie's mind… or he tried to. It was as if he bounced off a wall. Nothing happened. The girl's energy wrapped around her in such a powerful aura that he couldn't even get close. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of trying to push through, but no matter how he strained, he could not.
"I can't," he choked out, stunned, but he still didn't let go of her hand.
"Try again," Nir urged him.
"Maybe it's already too late," Aeson added sadly.
"That's not possible!" Nir pushed his way forward, the same panic etched on his face that was beginning to flood Dorian's mind as well.
"You're not helping," Marcus muttered. "She can't even breathe like this! Back up." He started herding the others toward the door.
"Maybe Filarion…" Nir began, but Filarion only shook his head.
"There's nothing I can do for her," he said mournfully.
Meanwhile, Leonie heard their conversation as if from the end of a long tunnel, her consciousness narrowed until there was only her and the pain. Nothing else existed. If she had been able to speak, she would have begged for a quick death, but instead her body took on a life of its own and started to jerk in spasms.
She felt the heat spreading through her, as if someone had lit a furnace inside her chest.
"What the hell? Look," Marcus blurted out suddenly, pointing toward the window. The branches of the trees near the house seemed to be stretching and snaking toward the glass, like living things trying to crawl into the room.
"What's happening?" Nir squeezed up to the window and peered outside. "Do you see that too?" he stammered.
"Of course we see it, we're not blind," Xavier snapped impatiently.
Dorian's gaze darted between the window and Leonie. Helpless despair washed through his mind. He couldn't move. It was happening again—another woman was going to die because of him, and he had to watch. It was a curse he would never escape. How had he ever thought bringing Leonie with him was a good idea?
"Dorian! She's not dead yet!" Marcus grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard to snap him out of it.
Dorian blinked, cast one more glance at the window, then scooped Leonie's convulsing body up in one smooth motion. He, too, felt it now—as if he had put his hands into the flames themselves, that was how strongly magic clung to the girl.
"What are you planning to do?" Filarion asked. He seemed to be the only one among them who had managed to keep a cool head.
"I'm taking her outside, but you all have to stay here. That's an order."
With long strides, he carried her out of the room and never looked back as he stepped into the open air.
The moment he crossed the threshold, it felt as if a tremendous wind had risen. Not only the trees, but the grass itself swayed at his feet. And yet there was no wind. It was Leonie. As if every plant were straining to reach her.
Dorian headed toward the forest and reached it in moments. What he had not expected was that, the instant he stepped between the trees, they closed in around him. Their branches stretched and twined until Dorian could barely move at all.
He crushed the girl protectively to his chest; she seemed to be burning in his arms. Then he felt a faint touch at his breast, and when he looked down, Leonie's green eyes were staring back at him.
"Put me down," she whispered in a hoarse voice.
Dorian stared suspiciously around them at the impenetrably dense wall of trunks, then noticed roots beginning to coil around his legs.
"No," he said firmly. "I won't let you go."
He didn't even know if he meant he wouldn't set her down or that he refused to accept that she might die.
"Please… I can hear them. They're calling me," Leonie breathed, and tried to twist out of his arms, but Dorian only held her tighter. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. He hadn't felt fear in a very long time, but now he was terrified that if he let her go, it would be forever.
Even so, he finally sank to his knees and carefully laid her at the foot of a tree. The moment he drew his hands back, roots burst from the earth like spears. As Dorian tried to leap aside, one of them pierced straight through his thigh. He roared in pain, but he couldn't tear his gaze from the sight of roots, branches, and all manner of plants weaving themselves into a cocoon around the girl.
"Leonie!" he shouted, trying to crawl closer, but nature shackled him like iron chains. He could barely move.
And then he felt it—stronger than ever before. The magic, like a solar flare, swept across the land in a searing wave that knocked him flat, and it seemed as if the entire world trembled with it.
Then silence. And stillness.
Gasping for breath, Dorian pushed himself upright, snapped off the chunk of root still sticking out of his leg, but wisely left the rest where it was. He dragged himself over to Leonie's wooden cocoon.
"Leonie, I'm here. Please don't die, I'm here," he murmured as he began prying apart the thick branches that had formed a surprisingly solid shell around her.
"Dorian!" Marcus's voice echoed through the trees, and moments later his friend appeared at his side, the others right behind him.
"We tried to follow you, but the forest…" Marcus began.
"The forest wouldn't let us!" Nir cut in. "I've never seen anything like it, the trees—"
"Where is she?" Marcus interrupted, only just noticing what Dorian was doing.
"Damn," he muttered, and all of them fell on Leonie's cocoon at once. Together they tore the branches away in moments.
Beneath them lay the girl, pale but peaceful, eyes closed as if merely asleep.
She was not breathing.
"No," Dorian rasped, horror tightening its claws around him. This couldn't be real. It couldn't.
Marcus bowed his head and squeezed Dorian's shoulder. The world seemed to freeze around them, a heavy, suffocating silence falling over the clearing.