Fire to Water

Overload

Kit was too close to him.

Ty could feel an echo of his touch all along his side, and while having just their knees touch was nothing compared to that, but it was still—

Too much.

Everything was too much—

Thoughts and and questions and voices and sounds and everything everything everythingeverthtingeverything

Dru was talking and Livvy was crying and the shadows on the page were too close and too much and they were whispering to him—

Dru snatched the sketchbook from his lap and flung it across the room.

"What the hell is wrong with that paper," Kit said, but he sounded like he was going to cry, and Ty leaned into him.

Kit stiffened, and Ty remembered that he'd gone away, and he leaned away again, and ty couldn't believe he'd forgotten.

Dru picked up the sketchbook, careful to keep the pencil marks out of their view. "I'm going to show this to Jace," she said. "And then I'm getting you chocolate, and don't you dare move."

Ty did not think he could move.

Usually he was good at moving. Usually he moved too much.

But.

Now he couldn't move at all.

As soon as Dru was out of the room, he whispered, "Livvy?"

Kit twitched, and their knees knocked painfully.

"I'm here," Livvy said, and her voice doubled and then tripled and then it was just her again. She floated in front of them. "Where'd the page go?"

She didn't look human, for a moment. She seemed to drip upward from the floor, and then settled into her normal floatiness, but there was still something—

Wrong.

Something was wrong with Livvy, and it wasn't like before, when everything had been wrong with Livvy (or nothing had been wrong with Livvy except for the part where she wasn't there) but still—

Something was wrong and it twisted and hurt like when Livvy was too far but she was right here in front of them.

Livvy dripped up again, and then came back. "Ty?" She said (Ty Ty Tytytytytytytyty said the extra voices in her voice).

Livvy was very far away and Livvy was right here in front of them and somehow it was wrong, wrong, everything was wrong, and Ty pulled out a fidget toy but it was too much, and there was too much of everything and too little of Livvy—

("Ty?(Ty Ty tytytytytytytyty)")

He reached out and met Kit's hand, halfway, already reaching for him, and the light was being strange and somehow it was half of day and half of midnight and everything was blurry and too sharp and Livvy was made of impossible angles of too much light and too much shadow and she dripped up again, but what was up, what was real, nothing was real except for Kit's hand in his—

"Livvy?" Ty said, and his voice was his own but the little voices in Livvy's voice picked up the word (Livvy Livvy ivvyivvyivvyvyvyvyvyvyvy)

"I can't stop seeing it," Livvy said, ("What is it what was it what will it be" said her voices) and doubled and tripled and then was just Livvy again.

And nothing was real anymore except for Ty and Kit and Livvy.

"I have an idea," Kit said, ("I have I had we have it" said the voices) and put his hand up to his neck.

"I can't stop making it real," Livvy said and it wasn't her voice anymore ("What is it what is real what does it mean") and she was bleeding, a skinny line on her white dress right where the sword went in and everything was Livvy and everything was wrong—

A chain, slim and feathery and cold, ran across the back of his hand, and Kit smiled at him and turned and threw the necklace at Livvy and it was both a necklace and a bird and a chain and something else cold and dark and silver and deep—

And everything was nothing but the two of them for a very long time. 

A/n: somehow this turned from Cassandra Clare to Cassandra Clare written by Maggie Steifvater and I'm not sure how.