Gideon makes a sound like dying and crumples back. The corral fence catches her, but trying to maintain her sense of balance is pretty precarious; she only hopes she won't fall all the way over and piss herself or vomit or die or do something else embarrassing in front of Harrow's teacher.

She doesn't – yet – but it's a near thing.

The cold fingers of siphoning caress her heart and it palpitates in panic, like a small animal trying to escape claws that have already sunk in. The one thing she can be grateful for is that it's not nearly as bad as the entropy field trial, even if that's like saying getting stabbed in the stomach isn't as bad as getting stabbed in the heart.