"Other people did. The rest of my Krewe, other Bound in other cities, they all seemed to be doing fine. They saw it as a gift and not just... putting off the inevitable."

Or at least, she assumed they did. She never spoke about it with her Krewe. They were all still moving, so they had to have been doing alright, surely.

Darcy wants to keep fighting him on it, to keep arguing as to why she's a unique case and their situations are different. But she's not expecting the... kindness that Dimitri shows her. It's as if he'd just revealed that the earth goes around the sun, both incredibly novel and blisteringly difficult to swallow. Darcy was the one who held people up. Who took the hits, who kept moving, who was independent and self-sufficient and strong enough to carry every damn person who needed her, because there was no other option. Kael had told her once that to save the people you loved, you had to be willing to do anything. If someone wanted them dead, the only way to save them was to kill their aggressor first. That action was love and safety all wrapped into one. For other people, not for people like herself and her Krewe.

In the firmness of his arm, the runaway wheel wobbles.

"It doesn't solve anything," she rasps, her voice choked on tears she's still swallowing, "even if I do cry for an hour, then what? We're still on this fucking ship and I'm still half dead and-"

Darcy forces herself to take a breath. The wheel is toppling, and she slides from his shoulder to curl up on herself, her head next to his leg, the pit in her stomach consuming itself.