It's a beautiful day, sunny and clear enough that Gideon had rolled up her sleeves earlier to cool off after her reps, and she has no idea how it got so dark so suddenly. She's broken out into a cold, full-body sweat, but her lungs are burning and her throat is desert-dry. Harrow's power reaches further, and things start turning off throughout Gideon's body like someone is hitting a series of switches.

Stay awake, she tells herself, a little distantly worried about not being able to feel her left arm. If she loses it, Harrow loses it, and she can't, won't. The portal opens in the air and it feels like it opens in her gut; she retches and shudders and refuses to close her eyes.

Except she must have lost it for a second, or something, because a door slams and everything goes black, and when she manages to focus her eyes again, it's on Harrow, kneeling by her side.

She feels like absolute shit. She feels like she's been stomped on all over by the entire contingent of Ninth House skeletons; she feels as sick as if she'd accidentally seen Crux naked. "Don't cry, Nonagesimus," she says, except her vocal chords are refusing to work, and it comes out more like the ghost of a dehydrated whisper.

"You're gonna ruin your make-up."