There was nothing.
And at the same time, there was everything.
Leonie's consciousness floated somewhere between the two. Maybe this was what Filarion had meant when he told her what happened to elves after death.
The darkness slowly took shape before her, and she found herself facing a huge tree whose trunk glowed in a deep, wine-red hue. Its leaves were as large as two hands and as white as snow.
Leonie felt a strong pull from it, as if it were promising a warm, comfortable home. But then, from somewhere farther away, she heard a soft rustling. She turned her attention toward the sound and saw an open book.
Its pages reminded her of the tree's leaves, but they seemed… moldy.
Her formless hands stretched toward the book to flip through it, but the moment she touched it, something yanked at her—like a hand grabbing her mind—and in the next instant she opened her eyes.
Leonie was still utterly bewildered by what had happened, and her mind was foggy from the aftershocks of the magic. She had a vague sense that she had felt Dorian while every part of her had been threatening to tear apart. Not his touch—something of him—but she couldn't name it.
Fragments of memory flashed up: they were standing in the forest, she had asked him to put her down and then… nothing. She remembered nothing else.
Now all the elves, except for Dorian and Marcus, were crowding around her bed, staring at her as if she were some rare animal. She had no idea what was going on.
"Leonie," Filarion's calm voice sounded above her, but it seemed to ring differently than before. "Do you remember anything that happened?"
"I… I don't know… everything is so blurry, like I'm seeing it through a waterfall."
She studied his face more closely. His features seemed slightly different somehow. Confused, she furrowed her brow.
"It's like… you've changed," she murmured.
Maybe she simply hadn't had the chance to really look at Filarion before. After all, her headaches had drowned out any focus she might have had for her surroundings. Yes, that must be it.
"Or you've changed," Dorian said as he stepped back into the room, far more composed than when he had left it.
He glanced around at the others and shook his head.
"You could let her breathe a little. Everyone, go about your business," he ordered.
The command immediately provoked a wave of protest.
"But I'm curious!" Nir objected in the loudest voice.
"I think we all are," Xavier grumbled at him.
"What's there not to understand? He wants to be alone with her," Aeson said, grinning. "Maybe a near-death experience softens the heart."
He nimbly skipped aside before Dorian could punch him, laughing as he slipped out of the room.
"You seriously want to talk about love when she just brought a forest to life and then came back from the dead? It was incredible!" Nir spun toward Leonie, his bright grin met only by her uncertain smile. It was obvious she had no idea what anyone was talking about. What love? Who had died?
"Nir, you always know how to start a conversation," Marcus said cheerfully, grabbing his friend by the arm and dragging him out before Dorian turned his face into a pulp.
"It looks like you're fine aside from the fatigue," Filarion concluded and gave Leonie's arm a gentle pat. Then he stood, nodded to Dorian, and slipped out the door.
"We'll need to talk about this," Xavier added, promising a not particularly pleasant dinner with that one sentence, then he too departed.
They were alone.
Like statues, they just stared at each other. Leonie felt as if she had never really seen the man before. Even his voice seemed to carry a deeper resonance she hadn't heard until now. If only she understood what that meant.
Dorian took a tentative step toward the bed, and Leonie broke the silence.
"What happened to your leg?" she asked suspiciously.
"Nothing serious." He waved it off, but when he saw she wasn't going to accept that, he sighed, dragged a chair next to the bed, and told her everything that had happened during the night.
Leonie listened quietly, trying to piece his words together with her own memories.
"I don't understand… I'm here. I'm not dead." How could the elves think she had returned from death? It made no sense. No one could just rise from the grave.
"You weren't breathing. You were dead for minutes," Dorian said, his body tensing at the memory.
"Then what happened to me? How is that possible?" she asked, shaking her head. She didn't want to believe what he was telling her.
"Honestly? I don't know… yet."
"What we do know is that the potion the baron made you drink suppressed your magic, but that's over now. That's why we look different to you, why we sound different too. In reality, our magic saturates us so much that we see and hear things ordinary humans never could. Our perception is different. We can almost feel each other's magic physically, if we pay attention."
He gently took her hand, and Leonie's breath caught for a heartbeat. She felt it then—the same touch she had sensed while suffering. It was as if Dorian were wrapping her in a soft blanket, his magic brushing lightly against hers.
She snatched her hand back.
"Don't crawl into my head," she snapped.
Becoming an elf or not, she hadn't forgotten what he had done to her. And though Filarion's words had affected her deeply, she still couldn't fully trust him.
"I'm not," Dorian said quietly, his expression darkening. He hadn't expected them to be talking about this of all things right now, instead of what had happened to her—but he was grateful to have any chance at all to clear the air.
"I swear to you, I never intended to force you into anything. It only happened once, that morning when I asked about your past. I was… confused. And I wasn't aware of what I was doing. I'm sorry."
Leonie pressed her lips together and looked away.
"How am I supposed to know you're not lying now? That you won't do it again?" she asked, swallowing hard.
"You can't," Dorian replied after a brief pause.
Leonie snapped her head back toward him. Wasn't this the part where he was supposed to reassure her?
"You can't know," he repeated, "but you can choose to trust me."
He took her hand again.
"I know you think I'm judging you for what you told me that day."
Leonie swallowed and shook her head. Facing his disgust once had been painful enough; she had no desire to hear it detailed.
"Please don't—"
"You are the purest being I've met in my life," he breathed, cutting across her words. "There's nothing about you that repulses me. Not even a little."
And then, so quietly she almost missed it, he added:
"I wish there were…"
Leonie stared up at him, then down at their linked hands, utterly at a loss. She couldn't even process what he was saying.
He couldn't mean that.
Or… could he?