Page 55 of Turret

“Quinn.” I whispered his name midst a breathless sob. I fumbled for the candle on the nearby ledge and stumbled into the darkness, struggling to traverse the corridor with only its faint glow. I hadn’t ventured far when Quinn cried out again.

“Gemma, don’t—”

His voice was muffled, sounding almost far away…and clearly in pain. I froze, my pulse palpitating. “Quinn?” I stuttered.

He didn’t answer, which only escalated the worry squeezing my chest. I lifted the candle and carefully stepped closer, searching…and my breath caught.

The stone staircase had collapsed and down below was Quinn, crumpled in a heap and clutching a bleeding leg. He must have fallen.

I released a choked sob and hurried towards the landing—but stopped short, for the steps were gone, leaving no way to get to him. Even though he’d only fallen down one flight onto the portion of the staircase that hadn’t crumbled, he was still a ways down, making it impossible for me to reach him.

The coldness of the stones seeped over me as I knelt on the floor and extended my candle further into the darkness in hopes of better seeing the extent of his injuries. But the darkness was too thick, and Quinn too far away, making it difficult to discern his well-being.

At the sound of my movement, his head snapped in my direction. “What are you doing, Gemma? I told you to stay away. The staircase—” He gritted his teeth, his expression twisted with pain, the most emotion I’d seen slip past his usual stoic mask.

“I’m not trying to come down.” At least notyet, but I refused to remain safely on the landing when he was injured. I tried to still my shallow, frightened breaths as I used the candle’s faint light to look for a way down to him…but there was nothing. “Did the stairwell collapse while you were on it?” I tried not to envision the stairs crumbling from beneath him, but my imagination paid no heed to my fervent wishes.

“No.” His pained tone was hardening. “They were already collapsed, but because Icouldn’t see…” He let out an agonized cry and pounded his fist against the wall. “I can’t seeanything. The darkness is consuming. To think there will never be anything else—”

His anger shifted into a despair so acute my heart wrenched, which only escalated my desperation to reach him. But though I was worried about his injuries, I was far more concerned by the pain in his eyes, his all-consuming devastation. Though I’d been searching for signs of this emotion all week, I was heartbroken to have finally found it.

I lifted the candle to take in my surroundings. The top three steps of the staircase were still intact, but the ones beyond it had crumbled, taking out most of the staircase until the second-floor steps where Quinn was currently crumpled and bleeding. The chasm was far too wide for me to cross, and Quinn was too far down for me to drop below. What was I to do?

The panic and helplessness crowding my mind made it impossible to think, save for my desperate need to reach him. I rested my hand against the stone wall and felt a flicker of warmth from the otherwise cold tower, a sign that its magic was still within the stones.

“Please help me,” I whispered.

At first nothing happened—until the tower suddenly shook, and as it did so, several steps reformed—though not all of them, which made the way precarious, but thankfully not impossible to reach Quinn.

The tower gradually stilled. Quinn looked wildly around. “What happened? Gemma, are you alright?”

“I’m fine. The tower has provided enough steps for me to reach you.”

“No, Gemma. You can’t—it’s too dangerous—” The remainder of his protests were swallowed up by another moan of pain. The sound of his distress increased my urgency; with my desperate need to reach his side as soon as possible, it took great effort to force myself not to move too quickly.

The crumbling steps the tower had created seemed to float in the thick darkness with nothing to support them, the spaces between each one wide. Only my trust in the tower and my love for Quinn gave me the courage to guide my steps from one stair to the next as I slowly and carefully made my way down until I finally reached Quinn.

I collapsed beside him and immediately began frantically scanning his body for injuries. My stomach lurched at how broken he looked. His breaths were sharp and shallow, his expression twisted with pain. It took several minutes of careful examination for the tight feeling in my chest to somewhat lessen. Though he was bruised and cut in several places, and in clear pain from his fall, the worst of his injuries was a broken leg.

My panic subsided, but only just, for he was still…brokenin a way that went deeper than physically. I saw it in his unseeing eyes as he stared gauntly ahead, eyes filled not with sight but with heartbreak.

I enfolded him in my arms and he melted into my embrace. As if he’d been holding his emotions together by a fragile thread until this moment, his remaining bravery faltered and he broke into shuddering sobs.

I’d never seen Quinn cry. He was always the steady one, the brave one. But now it was my turn to be his pillar of strength. Neither of us spoke. I held him close as he sobbed, allowing him to work through his pain and fear. He clung to me tightly, as if I were his only source of light in his never-ending darkness.

He was the first to penetrate the stillness with a whisper wrenched with emotion. “I don’t want to be blind.”

I held him more tightly, a futile way to offer comfort. “I know you don’t.”

He released another stuttering sob. “It’s not fair. Why me? I have three other siblings, and yet the curse choseme. Why must I suffer for my great-grandfather’s actions? Why must I be forced to live in darkness for an offense I didn’t commit? Even though I tried to prepare myself for it, it’s worse than I feared.”

Tears burned my eyes and I hastily blinked them away, fighting to keep my emotions in check, but my own sense of despair at the injustice that had been dealt to dear Quinn was too acute to keep my tears from escaping. I nestled against his hair. “I would give anything for you to have your sight back.” This knowledge burned in my heart, an unquenchable flame that only grew with each of his sobs.

It was a long time before we finally stirred. I helped Quinn stand and he leaned heavily against me. Together we shakily navigated our way up the makeshift stairs the tower had created, a process that was a long, arduous struggle on Quinn’s broken leg.

I led him to his bedroom and eased him onto the bed before retrieving Melina from the kitchens via one of the back stairways before locking myself in the apothecary to immerse myself in herbs as I attempted to find a concoction to stave off Quinn’s pain and aid his healing.

I worked quickly, numbly, but my shield faltered the moment I returned to Quinn’s side and helped hold him steady as Melina did her best to set and splint Quinn’s leg; each of his sharp, agonized cries pierced my heart. Nor was I numb as I helped Melina clean and bind his cuts.

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