[His words burn her, and she winces; she draws her hand to her own chest, as though she had touched something unbearably hot.]
[Too soon; it's entirely too soon, having had her heart torn by the damn Shift mere days before... and now the Gods would go so far as to tear the one thing she held onto away from her?]
[She has to fight back tears, and the all-too-fresh memories of the end of that Shift; of Lupin explaining everything, of sobbing uncontrollably in his arms...]
[When she speaks again, her voice is soft, her breath shaky. Composed... she has to stay composed.]
...is... is it because of that spell? [The same reason why his hands were so cold to the touch, the reason he had been so hesitant to dance with her at first, at the Masquerade...?]
[Action]
[Too soon; it's entirely too soon, having had her heart torn by the damn Shift mere days before... and now the Gods would go so far as to tear the one thing she held onto away from her?]
[She has to fight back tears, and the all-too-fresh memories of the end of that Shift; of Lupin explaining everything, of sobbing uncontrollably in his arms...]
[When she speaks again, her voice is soft, her breath shaky. Composed... she has to stay composed.]
...is... is it because of that spell? [The same reason why his hands were so cold to the touch, the reason he had been so hesitant to dance with her at first, at the Masquerade...?]