Page 85 of Choosing Jenny
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move at all. I could only speak and see.
“Is he okay?” Discord asked me, a rare panic tightening her voice.
I tried to turn toward her and couldn’t. “I don’t know!”
Discord attempted to pull us apart and failed. It was like we were fused together at his hand and my chest and when she tugged, it hurt inside my ribs.
“What do I do?” she asked, beside herself with worry.
“Wait, I think.” I didn’t believe we had any other option.
Discord groaned, her eyes darting between the three of us.
Aphonic’s ghost winced as the golden light that bound her to her body straightened. It was no longer swirling between them—it went taut.
“What is happening?” Aphonic’s voice was strained.
I had no answers. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry!”
Then, with a loud gasp that nearly startled me out of my frozen state, Surge sucked in air. The tether snapped, and Aphonic’s ghost returned to her body, where it belonged. Surge’s hand dropped away from my chest. The darkness in my mind vanished, taking the pain with it. My lungs pulled in deep, greedy breaths of oxygen.
Surge turned to Aphonic with a dazed smile. “Hi, Aphonic,” he said, then collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
Discord dropped to her knees beside him, lightly slapping his cheek to rouse him. “Surge!”
I knelt on the other side of him, trying not to let my anxiety overwhelm me. “Is he okay?”
“He’s breathing,” Discord said gratefully. “Whatever that was, whatever he did, it drained him.”
Aphonic leaned over the edge of her bed, now back in full control of her body. “Will he be alright?” She sounded just as worried as the two of us.
Discord saw Aphonic, and realizing that whatever Surge had done had actually worked, she wept. “Moons above, you’re back!” She leapt up and took the older woman in her arms.
I stayed near Surge, but curiosity tugged at me too hard. Surge was breathing, and there was nothing else I could dofor him. Aphonic, on the other hand, had just come back from the edge of death—or whatever came after it—and Discord was squeezing the other woman within an inch of her life.
I pushed to my feet. “Let her breathe, Discord.”
She laughed joyfully and released her. “I can’t believe you’re here. You’re really here!”
“It would seem so.” Aphonic’s smile was not entirely happy.
Discord, however, was beside herself with glee. “I’ve come here nearly every week since this happened to you, and I told you some things—”
“I heard them all.”
Which meant Aphonic had been aware of everything in her catatonic state. “Do you know what happened to you?” I asked her.
“Yes.” A simple answer for a complicated question.
Discord wiped away her tears, her expression hardening. “So you know it was Justice who had Noc curse you?”
“I do.” She nodded slowly. “Though I doubt it took much convincing on Justice’s part to have the magician cast the curse. Noc and I have never gotten on.”
Discord’s lips thinned. “Justice has been promoting the apotheosis.”
I frowned, glancing from Surge to make sure he was still okay, to Discord. “The what?”
“The idea that he is becoming a god.” Aphonic explained. “That is what he has always wanted people to believe of him. That he is a man who is a god. He wants to be worshipped by all. It is the true reason he had the conduits executed. He believed they pulled focus from him, in the public’s mind.”
