“EXPLAIN yourself.”
After the attack had safely passed, Mathias turned on Felix.
Mathias had wanted to fetch Mia, but Felix had vehemently disagreed. As a result, this panic attack had lasted much longer than usual. There was no other medicine but Mia, it seemed.
Felix remained silent, glaring at the ceiling.
“Your panic attacks always come about when you’ve been pushing yourself too far. This is all about Mia, isn’t it?”
Mathias had been over and over it in his mind. The moment when Felix had chosen Angelica.
It never made any sense to him.
At first, he’d been furious with Felix. Then as time passed and he thought about it more and more, he realized it couldn’t be true. Felix, tired of getting rejected? No way. Felix was stubborn to a fault. No way would he just give up halfway.
So this—all of it—had to be for Mia’s benefit. It made far more sense that Felix had a plan, a plan that necessitated Mia being left with the wrong impression.
Felix’s panic attack had only confirmed Mathias’s suspicions.
Felix, however, remained silent. “You stubborn fool,” Mathias thought to himself.
“So, it’s something you can’t even tell me about, is it?”
Even after all these years of friendship? Anger bubbled up inside Mathias again but was quickly replaced by feelings of inadequacy. Clearly, Felix felt he couldn’t be confided in.
Felix let out a sigh that sounded like a moan.
“Just wait. I just need a little longer.”
Finally, Felix spoke, still staring at the ceiling. He looked very young, somehow.
Seeing him that way, Mathias was struck by a memory.
Felix had made this sort of tormented facial expression once before, just before breaking into the Sanatorium.
“Don’t do anything crazy. Don’t make Mia cry.”
Crazy…the word hung in the air. Had Felix said something crazy before, during his attack?
Mathias tried to remember, but nothing came. As he stood there sweating, Felix sat up.
“It’s all right.”
Felix smiled, swinging his legs off the bed. As if the panic attack had never happened. He got to his feet and strolled to the infirmary’s door.
“Wait. What am I to you, anyway? You can’t confide in me? Huh?”
The question he’d been pondering deep within himself just spilled out.
Felix was his master, childhood friend, and prince, who he was duty-bound to guard. In the past year, Mathias had let himself believe their relationship was something more. Recently, he’d even started to hope that things might even return to what they had been like before Chris passed away. But clearly, he was wrong about that.
Felix came to a halt in the doorway.
“If things get crazy—I’ll be counting on your help. Until then…”
Muttering the words with his back still turned to Mathias, Felix left the room.
That wasn’t the answer Mathias wanted. But if Felix was counting on his help, that had to mean he still considered him a friend, right?
“What the heck is going on?”
Mathias’s low voice sounded weak and tremulous, amplified by the silent, sterile infirmary walls.