The world lurched.
It was the same sickening sensation as before. Reality folding, compressing, spitting them out into a place that was solid and entirely wrong after the soft glow of the villa, the sound of waves, the warmth of lantern light.
The war tent materialized around them in fragments. Canvas walls, the scent of dust and old leather, the distant murmur of soldiers who had never known a night like the one they had just left.
All four of them groaned.
Eastiel's hand shot out to steady himself on the table. Arkai pressed his palm to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut, breathing through the nausea that rose and fell in waves. Oathran stood very still, his face pale, his hands clenched at his sides, waiting for the world to stop spinning.
But Cecilia… Cecilia burst into tears.
"Oooooh, I'm so so sad!" The sob tore out of her suddenly, the sound she had been holding back for hours, for the whole long evening of smiling and laughing and pretending that everything was fine.
