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The Collector doesn't toss them into a cell. Instead, Raine slowly blinks to a grey sky, like smears of ash have been painted over the clouds, and wonders why they're not dead.
They feel like an Abominatron has stepped all over their bile sac. Raine's limbs ache, the sigil on their wrist throbbing and raw and--not burning? what?--and it's the Coven members all around, lying in various stages of pain and helplessness. Raine's memories swim. There's an arm holding them, a strong, steady arm, and blackness dots over their vision again.
It takes a few hours to settle in.
Raine still doesn't know how it came to this--huddling on a floating piece of rock, large enough that it had a miniature cave, hands still numb from the sigil. The Coven Heads had apparently been hit hardest by the draining spell--the sheer amount of magic inside them had almost fried their organs. Still, Raine lets themself sit at the cave opening, listening to a distant, high cackle of a being they can't even begin to imagine.
Something happened in the castle. Something with her children, with...Raine doesn't even know. People still scream from below. Raine wants to help them, every ounce of willpower urging them to go down, to rescue them, but they can barely move. Their muscles still lock and freeze up. Remnants of the spell, or remnants of watching her crumble away--
"Hey, Rainstorm."
A whoosh of wings. Eda's back in her harpy form. The sight of it still never fails to knock the breath from Raine's lungs. Eda's holding a small sack of something, and Raine tries to scoot so that there's more room--but a lance of pain spears through their spine and they double over, groaning slightly.
Immediately the sack is dropped, and the next thing Raine knows there's soft feathers draping over their shoulders. Eda embraces them swiftly in a hug, and even from the pain Raine can feel the stub of the arm prod where their shoulder is. Something soft and sad uncurls in their chest.
"You okay?"
"It's fine. It gets better." Raine's voice shakes a little. "Eda, are you alright?"
"Wh--of course! Never felt chippier! Well," Eda withdraws a little, a mischievous smile playing around her lips, "apart from the whole godlike child thing traipsing around the Isles like it's their personal playground, but it's nothing you won't expect after a while. Expect the unexpected, I guess."
"Eda--"
"The sack's got enough food and water for a few days. The bag holds more than it looks." Eda sits down next to Raine, feathers occasionally brushing along their neck and hair. Raine wonders if Eda's even aware of the motions. "You'll be up and casting in a few days and we can--" Eda's smile falters, like a glamour spell glitching, and Raine stares down at their hands. Sometimes, when they're lucky, they can move a finger or two. "We can..."
"Eda," Raine repeats, softly.
"Shit," Eda mumbles.
Eda doesn't cry around them. Raine can only remember a few times--when they broke up, when they played their Requiem and Darius dragged them away, when--and Raine remembers, now, the feeling of something wet and salty dripping on their face as the Draining Spell drags them under. Eda doesn't cry loudly, or violently. It's a single shake of her body, her shoulders tensing up once, and a soft, harsh breath drawn in through her throat. She sounds like she's in pain.
Slowly, her harpy form recedes, and Raine can see dampness on her face now. The sight hits them hard in the chest, like a physical punch.
"Eda," Raine says for the third time, "Eda, it'll--it'll be okay. We can get through this. We just have to..." Raine doesn't know what to say. Find the others? Stop the Collector? They're powerless, out on this lone floating rock. They can't even sleep properly.
"I don't even know if my kids are alive," Eda whispers miserably. "Luz, Luz--she's smart. She's tough. She'll be f-f-fine--King is smart too, he'll--he's always been resourceful. I'm sure they're--I'm sure..." her voice cracks on the last syllable. "My sister, my parents, they're--they might make it, but Luz and King are children."
Raine wants to comfort her. To tell her that she has some of the brightest, smartest kids in the Isles; that, through thick and thin, they'll be fine. They'll be safe. The words rest on Raine's tongue.
I can't say that.
Raine can't say that.
They believe in the children--Luz, with her unending optimism, King, with his overpouring curiosity and heart--but that was the Before, when everything still made sense. What comes up can be levitated down. Magic split into covens. Friends, allies, the sun rising up and down.
The After is a moon shafted in the sky, the world thrown into an endless, terrifying chaos like a nightmare stuck on loop. The After is the Collector's laughter still ringing in the air, the entirety of Bonesborough torn into floating, disembodied pieces, magic that fizzles and twists and burns from the inside out. The After is the miracle where Eda managed to get them both away, barely, so barely, and all Raine can see is the ashy stump of Eda's arm, how the fanged smile can't hide exhausted eyes and an even more exhausted expression.
"I don't know," Raine tells her truthfully. Eda buries a sob in her hand. "But--if it's any bit of consolation--" Raine feels like there's a lump in their throat. "I--I believe in them. And...and in you, Eda. You have a remarkable family."
"...heh. Thanks."
There's a soft sensation on their hand. Raine glances down to see Eda's fingers resting over theirs.
Once, long ago--decades ago, and they never noticed how time sped by--Raine remembers the first time they had held hands after IFWOT, how Eda had exclaimed "you just have to meet my sister! She's always got some book up her--uh, her--but you gotta meet her, and you gotta meet--" and she had tugged them along the hallway, their hands slipping into each other's as natural as breathing. Raine couldn't stop the solid, warm thump in their stomach, like a supernova about to burst straight from their throat. This is what it feels like to fly.
And now, in the ruins of a city, it doesn't quite feel the same anymore. It's a different warmth instead, a slow, sleepy one that Raine feels right down to their bones. A warmth that's already ingrained every inch of their existence. It still makes their heart beat just a little harder, a little faster, but it's not a dizzying rush as it once was--instead, it's a star, steady and shining. The star has always been there. Raine just hadn't seen it soon enough.
Titan, Raine prays. They remember Eda introducing her kids to them, the smile that threatened to split her face. Titan, let--let her smile like that again. I don't even have to see it. The draining spell might wear off. It might consume them. Eda--Eda would live. She was a survivor; a fighter. Please--just let her and her family be okay.
"Hey, Raine?" Eda's voice is soft. There is no day or night, just the remorseless grey, but Raine closes their eyes and imagines that they're at their special tree again, listening to the grass sway. "I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad you're here too, Eda."
Sleep isn't easy. It comes and goes, cycles of deep, dark loneliness that leave Raine whimpering, but they think--for one second--that lips brush their cheek. It's unclear. They might have made it up.
They let themself relax, lulled into a soft rest. The warmth of Eda's hand never goes away.