Erin peels her eyelids open only to be immediately blinded by the rising sun. The light burns her eyes and makes her head throb. She groans and shuts her eyes against the invasive light.

Wait. Sunrise?

She bolts upright before she can think better of it. She cries out, clutching at her head and curling in on herself, some distant part of her registering the feel of the wooden deck beneath her and the sound of the waves around her. She opens her eyes again once she's certain she'll be able to actually see. She freezes in place.

Garrett is lying inches away, unmoving and eyes closed. Slowly she crawls over, body aching, and holds her hand just in front of his nose and mouth. The lightest breath tickles her palm. She breathes a sigh of relief. She can't see any blood or obvious injuries. He'll be okay. After all, she was possessed by the Primal and she survived. She finally peels herself off what's left of the deck of the Dawn's Light and winces, legs wobbling. Barely, she amends.

A breeze comes in off the ocean and her entire body breaks into goosebumps. Fuck, that is cold. She'll have to change. Soon. This horrible dress and its layers are all soaked.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees something behind Garrett. She turns her head – slowly this time. The book. That damnable book, lying there like it hasn't caused enough grief for ten lifetimes. A dozen things come racing back to her: the Baron's voice calling for the ritual to start, a flash of blue light, pain, darkness, Orion's voice, the cut of a knife, Garrett. Her heart beats harder, her head aches. It's like she's slipping out of her body again. She can't tell if she's shaking from the cold or from the memories now. For a minute she seriously considers tossing it into the waves below but looking at them makes her dizzy. Aware of the lightening sky and… voices somewhere, she hefts the book into her arms and begins picking her way off the wreckage of the ship and back to the City. Leave the ring for Garrett, she thinks. One more shiny bauble for his collection. She needs to get home to the South Quarter, get her bearings and get warm before she does anything else.

As expected, everything feels like it's falling down around her. The City is always a busy place but today it's just hectic. She's never seen so many people in the Old Quarter before. People are everywhere – the Watch, the Graven, the citizens – all trying to find someplace safe until this all blows over. She tries to avoid them all. Especially the Watch.

They're trying to corral all the remaining Graven and get them off the streets but the Graven refuse to go quietly. One man with a splash of red and white paint across his face throws himself at a Watchman despite the drawn sword. Several people jump into the fray, Watchmen and Graven alike. She uses the chaos to slip by, made more difficult by her noticeable clothes.

Things only get worse the further she goes into the City.

By the time she makes it through the rest of the Old Quarter and gets into Stonemarket, her clothes are drying and sunlight is spilling through the streets. It makes her glad she stayed off the rooftops. But now, back in familiar territory, she can see just how much the City changed while she was gone. She felt it while the Primal was still with her, of course, but to see it…

Almost everything is boarded up or vacant or destroyed. People in rags are huddled against buildings, trying to escape the attention of the roaming packs of Watchmen. Others are running into their homes or businesses in search of safety. The smell of smoke seems to drift through the entire district. She can't escape it.

Then she catches a glimpse of Grandmauden, the great plumes of smoke drifting up into the sky, the fires dotting the tops of buildings all throughout the streets. She forces her sore legs to carry her faster, further away from this.

She keeps her eyes on the cobblestones and ends up at the plaza in Stonemarket. The Clock Tower strikes seven, loud and jarring. It's as if it shakes her whole body. Briefly her mind wanders back to Garrett. Is he awake yet? Is he making his way back here right now? She thinks of Basso too. She'll come back, she decides. She'll come back once she's all sorted out and talk to Basso, figure out what Garrett told him, if he told him anything at all.

Baron's Way North is a battleground. The entire street is a tangle of Graven and Watch and even a few Eelbiters, though why they're fighting she has no idea. She goes right, through Glimmer Lane and from there she climbs carefully over the railing. The dizziness forces her to wait before she crosses the narrow beam between the buildings. She hauls herself over a windowsill and leaves through the window at the back of the apartment.

She comes out on a ledge, a wooden walkway that spans almost the entire street. Carefully, she crosses another much shorter beam and follows the makeshift bridge to a slanted little roof. She drops down onto it, silently cursing the architects of the City and almost sobs when her feet hit the shingles. She lowers herself to the ground, arms trembling, and trudges towards Eel's End. Surprisingly, thankfully, it's empty. They must all be hiding. Or fighting. She all but drops herself over the railing into the canal and loudly splashes her way through the water to the mill.

She walks through the mill in a daze and makes it all the way to her room before she remembers her traps. She didn't set any of them off. Garrett. She told him to find the key in her room. He must have been here then. How long ago was that? She only succeeds in giving herself a headache before deciding it doesn't matter. All she wants is to sleep. And to burn this horrible dress.

She leaves the book on her nightstand and starts to peel off the dress, cursing when the fabric of the sleeve pulls at the wounds on her arm. That will have to be cleaned and bandaged.

She sighs and trudges across the room and takes the small metal box from underneath the table against the wall. She settles herself in a chair and pushes some old sketches aside to make room. She opens it and digs out a bottle of diluted vinegar, a roll of bandages and a small clean cloth. She uncaps the bottle and pours some of the vinegar onto the cloth. She gently presses the cloth to the wounds highest up her arm and starts counting. Damn that Northcrest bastard. How many cuts did he make? When she gets to a hundred she takes the cloth away and repeats the process until all the cuts are clean. None of the cuts are bleeding anymore, they haven't since she woke up, but she doesn't want to risk reopening any of them. Or getting any dirt in them. The last thing she needs now is an infection. She'll wrap them up and forget about them until tomorrow when she'll have to clean them again.

The sun is out now. The light is coming in through the windows and little gaps in the walls. She should get some sleep--real sleep. She's exhausted and she needs to give her body a chance to heal and rest. But the memory of that endless blue place with its cold, empty feeling and it's vines and flowers chills her bones even now. Sleep can wait. She still has to change.

It isn't hard to find some clothes, even though her memories of this place are fuzzy around the edges. The mill is one of the only places she thought of while she was gone and muscle memory is harder to forget. She unearths a gray short-sleeved tunic, black trousers and she almost cries when she puts on the boots. To wear clean clothes and shoes again is a wonderful feeling.

Then her eyes land on the bundle of white fabric waiting on her bed. Head pounding, she snatches it up, along with a box of matches, and marches outside. She lights the first torch she finds and drapes the tattered dress over it. She stands in a patch of sunlight and lets it warm her while she watches it burn.

When she gets tired of watching (and standing), she goes inside and packs the medical supplies back into their box and puts it back under the table, if only so the bed will be ready when she actually does sleep. But that won't be any time soon. She feels like she slept for years.

She considers eating but she isn't really hungry. She's not really anything right now. Eventually she decides to get some water but when she comes back to her room she sees the book still sitting on the nightstand. She picks it up and leaves the glass in its place. She places the book in her hiding spot where her key used to be. Out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully.

Out of things to do and she still doesn't want to sleep. She perches on the edge of her bed and lets her gaze wander around the room, taking in all of her tools and books and art supplies. It strikes her just then that she can't stay here. Not if she wants to feel safe. How many of Orion's Graven are still out there? How many know where she's staying? They shouldn't, but they shouldn't have known about the Primal either. She'd rather be safe than sorry. But she has no idea where she could go or what to do next. At least her headache is fading.

Idly she sips her water. Where would she go? The thought of facing Garrett, or anyone for that matter, so soon makes her stomach twist. She just needs a little time. She's sure she could find somewhere to stay where Garrett wouldn't look for her, because she knows he'll look. She could stay there until he stops looking or until she's ready to face the world again. Whichever comes first.

If she does move, she'll have to do it soon while everyone is distracted. A couple weeks at the latest. She might even be able to move her stuff during the day. Just leave a box or two hidden away nearby until she can get settled in at night. It's not a solid plan but she was always better at improvising. Plans were Garrett's thing. She'll face him one day, but not just yet.

----

Erin looks around her old room one last time, looking for anything she missed before, anything else she wants to take with her. She already has her maps, those have to come with her. Some are the only copies to exist. Her tools and weapons are already at her new place. Her gaze lingers on the now half-empty shelf above her bed, the obvious gaps between the books making her pause for longer than she means to. She can't take them all and she already has her favorites boxed up at her new place. She doesn't need anymore. She turns her back to the shelf before she can think of a reason to change her mind and her eyes land on the cups of colored pencils and paintbrushes grouped together on top of an old crate. Her art supplies however...

The canvases will have to stay, blank or otherwise. They're just too big to take with her. But she gathers as many blank pieces of paper, empty sketchbooks and pencils as she can. She'll need some way to occupy her time, won't she? Maybe she can even take some of her finished pieces with her. She reaches for an old piece of paper until she sees it's one of her old sketches of Garrett. She draws back, her hand coming to rest on her other arm where the knife wounds are healing nicely on their own.

She still hasn't talked to him. She can't quite bring herself to yet. She isn't sure how. His words on the Dawn's Light come back to her.

Oh, so now you care?

I always have.

She didn't believe him then. She thought he was after the Primal too. She knows better now; Garrett was never the type to chase power like that. But when that thought crossed her mind then, possibly not her own, it seemed so sensible, so reasonable. Logical. The Primal had been part of her for so long that the thought of it being taken away scared her. More than she'd like to admit. It seemed like it was the only thing she'd had control over at the time.

Then it made her angry. Some part of her mind whispered he was there to take it from her. The thing that kept her alive through the ritual, her time in Moira, the hundreds of people who came for her blood--her 'cure', he was there to take it like everyone else. Of course he was. What else did he ever do besides take? She wouldn't let him have it. Not him and not anyone else who wanted it.

Why else would he have been there? Why else would he go through everything he did, if not for the Primal? For her? Then he said he was. He was there for her, because the Primal was killing her. And isn't that just like him? The whisper said. To come and tell you you're doing everything wrong. She snapped. And if she lost control even with the Primal at her disposal, then she really can't control anything, can she?

Sometimes she wonders if she'll always miss the raw power the Primal first gave her. But then she'll think of the look on Garrett's face when she attacked him, when he realized he wasn't going to get through to her, and she knows it's for the best. She doesn't want to be like that again. Not ever. But a vacant sensation surfaces sometimes. As if it took something Erin didn't even know she had until it was gone and left absolutely nothing in its wake. It's a horrifying feeling, like being stripped down to her very bones. It makes her want to tear the City apart looking for it but she doesn't even know what it is.

Doubt still creeps in. That hollowness comes and she wonders what's left of her, if she's anything at all, she wonders if Garrett really meant what he said on the Dawn's Light or if he only said it because he knew it would be the fastest way to a solution. How can she be sure? Some nights she puts off sleeping until her body forces her to because she doesn't want to wake up in that vast, yawning blue again or to the sting of a knife or needles in her arms. Those are the times she reminds herself she's the one in control now; not Garrett, not the Primal, not the Baron or Orion.

She leaves the drawing where it is and picks up the final box. One last glance around the room and she's sure she has everything she needs. Maybe one day, if she ever gets more room, she'll come back for the rest of her things. Maybe one day, if she feels safe, she'll come back for good. But for now she has boxes to move and unpack, organizing to do, a reputation to re-establish and a city to get reacquainted with.