[It was like watching Harrowhark insisting that Cytherea's body was hiding under her bed, haunting and stalking her, dragging Ianthe to confirm but then realize that there was no body. Or any of the other times she encountered examples that Harrow was seeing things, imagining them, convinced they were real.

The first time, she'd called Harrow 'crazycakes', brushing her anguish off as just a side effect of the fucking lobotomy, but the other times? It made Ianthe uncomfortable. She didn't know how to handle it, and by that time she'd developed actual feelings for her. She respected Harrow, and to see her so vulnerable had... made her run away. Leave Harrow to her own devices, her own torment, made her have to figure it out on her own.

Ianthe felt something crawling under her skin, that same discomfort that made her want to leave. Abandon Alina to her own demons, to make her battle them alone, because Ianthe didn't know what to do and wanted to protect herself. She wasn't sure she believed Alina that she hadn't meant it, the urge to snarl like a wounded animal was there.

Fuck, she really was an awful person. But she needed Alina. She told Iggy that she'd take Alina back.

...and she would, crazy and all. Ianthe lowered back to the floor, kneeling right by Alina, and carefully rest her arm on the other woman's leg. A point of contact. Something real, grounding maybe? Perhaps the only thing Ianthe had ever learned to aid Harrow.]

That doesn't make it okay. Actually ripping my heart out would've been kinder. So tell me what happened. I want to understand. Help me understand.