#firecoatedrain

       “ I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS. I mean, pretend to be Silver? Are we all INSANE? All I’d have to do is trip or fall or anger someone enough and then I’d be bleeding in front of everyone and they’d know. ” Mare pressed her hand to her corseted waist and wondered how anyone could breathe let alone walk in these things. She thought of Evangeline and her iron-scale dresses –– surely she wore no corset. “ You don’t know me that much, but I have a tendency to get myself into trouble... Maven, this won’t end WELL. ” 

          SHE WAS DONE. For weeks she’d been on the brink of giving up, holding on by the tips of her bleeding fingers to some hope that what she was doing would save her friends, her family –– but Samson Samos had probed too far, too deep, touched some part of her too VULNERABLE, too intrinsic to her stability. She’d tumbled off, and even when Maven was fighting to pull her to her feet –– metaphorically. literally. –– she couldn’t stir herself to TRY. Mare was Done. Done. Done.

She wanted to laugh, but it felt like dust was coating her tongue. “ You can’t. You can’t save me. You did this to me. ”