Текст книги "Tatterdemalion "

Автор книги: Anah Crow

Соавторы: Dianne Fox
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

want to wait. “But I wouldn’t get to watch you shower.”

“I’m just eye-candy to you, aren’t I?” Dane pulled a robe on and held another out for Lindsay. “Come

on, you can appreciate my male beauty a little longer before Ezqel has his way with me.”

Lindsay slid his arms into the robe. “As long as you’re you, I don’t care what you look like.”

“I hope I’m still me, then. I haven’t been that other person in a long time.”

Lindsay didn’t know what that meant, so he kept quiet as they walked to the bathroom to shower.

When they finished cleaning up, Taniel was waiting for them in the sitting room. “Ezqel will see you

outside. This is not a magic to be done indoors. I will take you to him.”

Naked and outdoors. In winter. Lindsay sighed quietly and pulled the robe tighter around himself.

“Does the magic cure frostbite too?”

Tatterdemalion

“It will be warm enough.” Taniel led them out through the back of the house, but this time he took

another path, one that led toward a tall, gray mountain.

It was, shockingly, warm enough, and the path under their feet was dry. Tiny green spikes of new

flowers poked out from under black, rotting leaves. The air smelled like snow with a hint of spring when

the wind blew.

“This is a safer place to break magics,” Taniel explained, growing breathless. “The stone is very

stable, it goes deep, and it draws in power. The water that runs through is clean and carries away excess

power, the fragments of spells.”

“I’m starting to feel like I grew up with blinders on,” Lindsay murmured. “I never would’ve guessed

there was so much magic in the world, or so much…infrastructure for it.”

“The human race drifts on the surface of great depths, in every way,” Dane said, as though he were

quoting something. “You’ll learn.” He offered Lindsay a hand as the path grew steep. He seemed to know

the way as well as Taniel, his feet finding the path without hesitation.

Dane was right, Lindsay thought. When the spring-laden breeze pulled at his damp hair, he

remembered all the times he’d felt the wind before and had never known it could have a voice. He’d never

known that people like Dane and Vivian and Kristan existed. Lindsay had assumed that Taniel was a

human student and now he wondered at Taniel’s magic. What was it?

And how did Izia’s magic work? She’d saved Dane from death, with help, but she looked like some

graduate student playing monk at a party. The kuni that had tested his magic, it had seemed like a normal

stone, but someone had made it and polished it. The box that held the guul heart, had Ezqel made it? And

what about the ring that Dane had worn to kill the guul? It had shimmered with a red light that reminded

Lindsay of the glow in an animal’s eyes.

Lindsay was used to living on the surface. At home, he had lived on the surface of all his mother’s

secrets and wealth and all his father’s power. He’d always known, even though it was never talked about,

that his father had seen combat and had ordered the deaths of soldiers and had even killed men himself.

There were medals to prove it. Lindsay had floated above those depths, but this was different.

Now the depths below him meant safety.

There was awareness in Dane’s expression and Lindsay realized that Dane could see into the depths,

not just into the mundane dark. Dane had come up from those depths for Lindsay. It was time for Lindsay

to leave the surface behind and dive, to swim deep and to learn. He didn’t want to be ignorant anymore.

After a while, the trail leveled out to wind along the side of the mountain where it jutted out of the

earth, a ragged, weathered face rising to Lindsay’s left. Dane moved to walk on the raw outer edge, his bare feet sure over even the sharpest stones. The forest rolled away below them and Lindsay thought he could

see, in the distance, the other rise where they’d been when they’d eaten breakfast before Jonas had come.

Maybe he was just making it up. Who was he to know where they were in Ezqel’s forest?

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The wind pulled at them again and Lindsay clung tighter to Dane’s hand. Dane’s eyes said what

Lindsay needed to know. It’s okay. I won’t let you fall.

“It’s just here,” Taniel said, carefully negotiating a turn around an outcropping. Lindsay could hear

water falling. As they came around the corner after Taniel, Lindsay saw that the path was cut by a silver

ribbon of water that plunged down several storeys before breaking into foam and rainbows on the rocks

below. “This way.” Taniel led them back the way the water came, through a rift in the mountainside so

small that Dane had to duck to get through.

Lindsay followed, quiet again. Nervous again. He had no idea what Ezqel was going to do to him,

except that it involved the demon heart they’d brought back from Mexico, and that they had to be outdoors

because the magic wasn’t safe indoors. If it wasn’t safe inside a building, how could it be safe inside his body? The passage widened until Dane could walk on the edge of the stream and hold Lindsay’s hand,

keeping him steady on the worn, damp stone path.

Lindsay would have been embarrassed except that Dane wasn’t. Dane never made him feel like being

looked after was wrong or weak. Dane made him feel like it was a gift, a gift he deserved. Lindsay wasn’t

used to deserving anything, or he hadn’t been. He was now. It hit him then how much he could lose if this

didn’t work right on Dane.

Dane’s eyes were wide like a cat’s in the dim light, and he squeezed Lindsay’s hand. “It’s okay,” he

murmured. “It’ll be over soon.”

Lindsay didn’t want it to be over. Not this part. What if, once Lindsay had his magic back, Dane

didn’t want him anymore? It wouldn’t happen, he soothed himself. Dane had seemed so happy at the idea

that Lindsay would need him afterward. What if Dane thought, secretly, that Lindsay wouldn’t want him

anymore? Lindsay leaned his head on Dane’s shoulder, watching as Taniel’s shadowed form grew darker

as the light ahead of them grew stronger.

“And then we can go home,” Dane added, kissing Lindsay’s hair. Everything would be okay. Lindsay

closed his eyes for a moment and wished as hard as he could. He’d never wished for anything, really,

because wishes never came true. Let everything be well. This was his new life. Wishes came true here.

Taniel led them into a cavern flooded by water from higher up the mountain that pooled here before

pouring out the way they’d come and plunging down the mountain. Humidity gathered on the ceiling and

dripped from long stalactites. Something growing in patches on the walls and ceiling gave off just enough

light to see by. Lindsay had never seen anything like it before.

“Lichen.” Taniel answered Lindsay’s half-formed, unspoken question. “It feeds on more than just air

and stone and water. It knows much. The earth and the things on it, they remember more than man has ever

known. But we can’t dally.” He took hold of his robes in both hands, lifting them above his ankles, and

hurried toward the shadowed end of the cave.

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It knows much. Lindsay let himself be led along, looking up at the lichen a little longer. But what did it know? He was beginning to understand Taniel’s obsession with knowing everything.

They went through another narrow passage, this time with the water all the way to their ankles,

washing their feet and numbing their toes. They emerged into the light. The vaulted ceiling went up high to a crack in the roof where the sun came in and caught on the crystal edges of the stone, lighting up the whole room.

All around them was the sound of water running. Lindsay realized that most of it came from the

spring that welled out of the rock at the far end of the room, but there were little tributaries falling from the ceiling, seeping from the floor, rippling down the walls. The floor was worn with wandering silver streams, tiny veins leading to the pool that rushed out to feed the side of the mountain and the forest.

Unnatural things were here, as well, if magic things were unnatural. Runes were inscribed all over the

floor and walls. At first, Lindsay thought they were gilded, but there was only stone when he stopped to look at one. The shimmer he was seeing was magic, not gold.

It was real. Magic was real. Like stone, like water, like light, it was real and Lindsay could feel it all

around him. He could feel his own broken magic yearning for it and falling short.

Ezqel’s equipment was in the cave also. Lindsay had seen movies like Frankenstein and thought them

laughable, but here was the real thing: brass and glass instruments, blue flames and coiling tubes and

burbling liquids, shimmering crystals and clockwork gears. A magical laboratory hidden in the side of a

mountain, in the heart of a thinking, knowing forest. And in that laboratory, a faerie scientist was working, just like in a fairytale.

“Are you ready?” Izia stepped away from the table that she had been helping prepare, wiping her

hands on a rag. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright, as though she’d been working hard since

she’d sent them to shower. Ezqel had his back to them, bent over a workbench so that Lindsay couldn’t see

what held his attention. “I was about to come find you.”

“More than,” Dane grumbled, before Lindsay could apologize for being slow going up the mountain.

The way Dane sounded, it was Ezqel and Izia who’d been slow.

“I need to take some notes.” Taniel bobbed at them, a funny little cross between a bow and a curtsey,

and scampered off. Lindsay liked him more all the time. He wondered if he would have been like Taniel if

his parents hadn’t wanted him to be something he wasn’t.

“You first.” Izia gave Lindsay a smile, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing out her robe.

“Me…?” Lindsay wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. What had he been expecting?

The doctor’s office? More and more, he felt the huge gap between his knowledge and his new reality.

Awareness was only a small step toward knowing. He had so far to go.

“Unless you want to see your friend go first,” Ezqel said, not turning around. “But I don’t think he’d

like that.”

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Izia held out her hands. “I’ll take your robe. You won’t need it until after.”

Oh. It wasn’t like Lindsay had any shame, not about that. He just felt so exposed already. “I…” He started to speak, but Ezqel turned to look at him and Lindsay really was ashamed. Coward. “Here.” He slid the robe from his shoulders, surrendering it to her.

The tiny purr of approval that Lindsay heard from Dane made him flush and stand straighter at once.

Dane liked the look of him. Even that small thing made Lindsay’s vanity—silent so long he’d thought it

dead—rise up and give him more strength.

“On the table.” Ezqel’s voice filled the room effortlessly. The fae mage stood and came over to the

table. Taniel was a step behind with a tray of instruments, including an inkwell and quill, in his hands. “I’ll deal with you later,” Ezqel said to Dane. There was a dismissive chill in his voice that gave Lindsay pause.

Izia was trying to help him up onto the table, using a small wooden step stool, but Lindsay froze. The

fact that he was broken and naked didn’t matter a damn. He wasn’t doing anything as long as Ezqel was

speaking to Dane that way. “I want him to stay,” Lindsay blurted out. Something in him whispered that,

though Ezqel was doing him a favor, he’d done one for Ezqel too, something no one else could do.

Everyone turned to look at Lindsay and he sat on the cold stone table quickly, hands in his lap, trying

not to shiver, trying to stay brave. “Please,” he added quietly. Please don’t send him away.

The silence was unbearable, finally broken by the shifting of velvet as Ezqel shrugged. “It’s not my

healing,” he said flatly, as though it really were.

Lindsay couldn’t look at Dane, in case Dane was disappointed in him or, worse, embarrassed. Instead,

he turned his attention to the stone table that was freezing his backside. It was dark silver granite inset with metal and stones, white and red and black. The metal had been shaped into runes that he thought he

remembered from somewhere. Maybe from the floor.

“Are you sure?” Izia’s voice was soft. She put a gentle hand on Lindsay’s arm. “Taniel and I will be

here with you. If he stays, he will see you.”

The way Izia said that word, see, made Lindsay realize that she was talking about something other

than seeing him naked. Dane would see something about him that even lovers wouldn’t normally share.

The moment his eyes met Dane’s dark stare, he knew. “I’m sure.”

Dane stepped into his range of vision, keeping himself the focus for Lindsay’s attention. His arms

were crossed over his chest and his expression was calm. “You’re going to be fine,” he said, his voice low.

Lindsay met Dane’s gaze again and nodded. He would be.

“I was able to identify the particular artifact used on you.” Ezqel turned to Taniel, who was standing

by a small cart with all kinds of equipment arranged on it, a tall black glass cylinder in the center. From the tray Taniel held, Ezqel took a small gold pot of ink and a black crow’s quill. “That will make it easy to reverse the spells.”

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Ezqel brought the ink and quill over to Lindsay. “I’ll make the proper inscriptions to lay the

groundwork for the second half of the process, then we’ll attach the heart artifact. I only bother explaining this to you so that, possibly, you will stop being quite so anxious. It interferes with my concentration.”

“I’ll try to stop,” Lindsay promised, glancing at Ezqel apologetically. He didn’t mean to make

anything more difficult.

“I could distract him.” Dane smiled at Lindsay. Izia and Taniel both gave Dane discouraging looks

and Ezqel exhaled sharply.

Blushing fiercely, Lindsay shot Dane a glare that was softened by the grin tugging at his lips, and

ducked his head to hide behind his hair. Dane chuckled.

“Hold out your hands.” There was an edge to Ezqel’s voice that Lindsay remembered well enough

from his childhood—the sound of him trying someone’s patience with his wretched needs. Lindsay flushed

and obeyed, trying to keep his hands steady. “Don’t move.”

The ink on the quill that Ezqel lifted from the well was blacker than anything Lindsay had ever seen

except for the blood of the guul. When the quill came down on his skin, Lindsay had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. It felt like he was being opened up with every stroke, and the ink was seeping into him. He felt sick, like vomiting or fainting, at the sensation of Ezqel’s careful writing passing over the half-numb skin of his scars, over and over again.

The fear Lindsay felt was so much like that he’d felt at Moore’s hands back at the Institute, and Ezqel

was just as cold and cruel and powerful. Every bit of fear he tried to suppress compounded instead and he

could feel himself spiraling out of control. He had to stop. He sucked in a breath, dizzy and terrified and hating himself.

“I told you to hold still.”

Ezqel’s voice snapped Lindsay back into reality. Only then did he realize what had been rising up in

him. Terror. Horror. The smell of antiseptic and steel and electricity. The memory of the cuffs on his wrists that bound him to his bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and it came out weak and broken. “I’m trying.” His hands were fluttering like

thin white flags, surrendering.

“That was then.” Dane’s voice was warm and golden, like the sun streaming down. “This is now,

remember?”

Lindsay looked up to see Dane standing right there in front of him, looking at him like there was no

one else in the room. Dane. The first safe thing Lindsay had known in the world was right there when he needed it—that was why he’d wanted Dane to stay.

“Make him still.” Ezqel’s frustration was palpable. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

Dane’s hands closed on Lindsay’s, huge and gentle. His tender expression washed away all Lindsay’s

shame. “Try harder,” he said, and he sounded angry, but Lindsay knew it had nothing to do with him. Dane

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had been speaking to Ezqel. There was a long, uneasy silence, and then the quill dug into Lindsay’s skin

again.

Dane’s hands were warm around Lindsay’s, and so strong. He leaned in to kiss Lindsay’s forehead.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured. “This is now, remember.”

Lindsay nodded and met Dane’s eyes. “I remember,” he whispered, but it wasn’t easy to push all that

fear aside.

With his hands anchored in Dane’s, though, Lindsay could stay still. He didn’t move while Ezqel

scrawled up his arms, down his spine, on the soles of his feet. Izia handled him like a doll, but he didn’t care. But when she lifted his hair away so that Ezqel could get at his neck, Lindsay clenched Dane’s hands

reflexively as the past rose up again.

Moore’s hands, her voice, the weight of the collar being clasped around his throat as she told him he

looked like royalty. The smell of the drugs filled Lindsay’s head, and he could taste the rubber gag they’d shoved in his mouth. The first line of the quill on his neck made his stomach lurch. He’d thought he was

being still, but as the quill drew back, he found that he was shaking.

“I’m sorry.” Lindsay was too afraid to move. If he moved, Ezqel would stop, and he’d be broken

forever. He tried, clenching his muscles tight, but he couldn’t stop shaking. “I won’t move, I’m sorry, I just, I’m trying, I…”

Dane’s mouth on Lindsay’s halted his babbling. It was a long, slow kiss, tender without being chaste,

and Dane’s tongue washed the memory of drugs and gags out of his mouth. He could feel Dane’s familiar

jagged teeth against his own tongue, and he pressed into the kiss with a whine he couldn’t stifle. By the

time Dane pulled away enough to let him breathe, Ezqel was writing again, and Lindsay was calm. He

leaned his forehead against Dane’s, breathed Dane’s breath, and let himself pretend that there was no one

else here but them.

Ezqel kept working without comment, the quill pressing hard against Lindsay’s skin. The sensation of

the sharp point dragging over the twisted, half-numb scar tissue was nauseating, but Lindsay could bear it

now. Finally, Ezqel turned away. “If you two are quite finished…”

Dane pulled back. “Only if you are.” He gave Lindsay’s hands another squeeze and stepped away.

“Lie down.” Izia came over to help. Taniel had long since pulled out a book and was carefully making

notes about the whole procedure.

Once Lindsay was flat on the cold stone table, he looked around for Ezqel so he could watch whatever

the fae mage was doing to prepare for the next step.

Izia came back to stand by his head. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe while this happens, that your

body keeps working normally. You can focus on me. You’re going to be fine.” Lindsay met Izia’s eyes.

She was some kind of healer, he reminded himself. She’d saved Dane, brought him back after he’d died.

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Ezqel opened up the dark glass cylinder and pulled out something that looked like a copper and silver

octopus with a black body. Before Lindsay had time to wonder what it was, Ezqel came over and put the

black thing on Lindsay’s chest. The guul’s heart. Lindsay had expected it to be ground up, powdered, or

made into some kind of elixir. He hadn’t expected to see it again, lying on his breastbone, heavy and wet

and warmer than his own flesh.

The smell of it hit him with all the memories of that night in Cholula, his stupidity and his terror and

the crumpling of Dane’s bones and the flash of the knife as Dane butchered the dead guul. It could have

been his own shivering making the thing move, but it seemed fresh, still twitching with life.

“This will hurt.”

That was all the warning Lindsay had. The first needle piercing his skin sent a fresh terror through

him. But there was no burn of drugs that followed and Lindsay realized that all the long, spindly “limbs” of the device had needles at the end. Bypass, Ezqel had said. Only magical, not medical.

Lindsay tried focusing on Izia, but he didn’t know her well enough for her to be able to make him feel

safe just by virtue of her presence. He turned his head, seeking out Dane instead. Lindsay focused on him,

memorizing his features, letting the familiarity soothe him as the needles slid in.

Things grew vague after that. Cold spread out from the points in Lindsay’s skin, as though his life

were being drained from him. It felt like it had when the guul was taking his magic, only he could feel the icy points where it was seeping away from him.

Izia took his face in her hands and said, “I need you to look at me.” Her hands were incredibly warm.

The cold that was even colder than his skin and the sensation of being drained all over again made

Lindsay feel sick. He stared up at her with wide eyes.

“You’re going to be fine.” Her hands were so warm, warmth that pushed into him and fought the cold

that filled him. “You’re not alone. My life is with yours. Trust me.”

“Step away from him.” Ezqel’s voice was distant and hollow.

There was something beating on Lindsay’s chest, faster and stronger than his heart, and there was a

strange blue light in the air. Lindsay felt lost, with even Izia moving away from him. He tried to turn his head toward Ezqel’s voice, but he couldn’t move. Besides, moving his head might have meant seeing

whatever it was that was so heavy and alive on his chest. Lindsay knew what it was, and he didn’t want to

think about it, about what it was doing there.

Instead of his magic being repressed, or kept from him, now it was being drawn out of him entirely.

Ezqel moved around him, touching him here and there, speaking words that made no sense. The weaker

Lindsay got, the faster the heart beat and the brighter the blue light grew, until it was painful to his eyes. He was so afraid and he couldn’t speak. It was so familiar.

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Finally, there was nothing left. Lindsay was weak and empty and human, his breath rasping in his

throat, his body struggling to survive without an essential element it had known all his life. He had no idea how he was alive. He felt dead, like a drowned man borne up by the untamable water.

Ezqel came to stand at Lindsay’s head, placing both hands on Lindsay’s temples. He spoke in a

strange language, holding Lindsay’s head in place like his hands were a vise. There was a hiss and crackle

and new light, red and gold mingled with the blue of the guul’s heart glowing. Lindsay was burning. The

words he didn’t know were on fire, burning through his skin. He couldn’t move to stop it, couldn’t wipe the fire and ink from his skin, because his body was nothing but a husk. All that was left was his mind, trapped in the prison of his flesh.

Ezqel’s dark eyes were full of power and nothing else; he was filled to overflowing with it. Pure

magic pushed through Lindsay and wetness welled at his throat and wrists. Lindsay’s husk was full of

Ezqel’s power; it seeped into his bones to the marrow.

The broken places in him cried out to be healed and there was the sickening twist of something being

set right. Ezqel let go and stepped back with a final word. All the magic that had been taken from Lindsay

rushed back in, racing joyously through his body.

Lindsay rolled onto his side, curling up, gasping for breath. His cheeks were wet with tears, but he

wasn’t afraid anymore. It was like he’d been filled up with pleasure. His magic was dancing under his skin, waiting to be let out. He wanted to roll around and bask in it. His magic ran the course of his body and

found it whole again. He felt so peaceful.

“Be still.” Ezqel was gently moving him to detach the heart. The needles slid away without pain and

the ugly thing fell harmlessly into Ezqel’s hand. “Izia.”

“I’m right here.” Izia draped Lindsay’s robe over him and gathered him into her arms, helping him sit

up. Lindsay could feel and smell the ink and ichor and sweat thick on his skin.

“Take him to get cleaned.” That was Dane’s voice, so rough and familiar, like stone under Lindsay’s

feet. Dane was right there, like the sun. His expression was tender, but there was pain in his eyes.

Lindsay wanted to tell him not to hurt, life was too wonderful to hurt, but his mouth wouldn’t make

words yet. The things he knew and felt were too big for something as small as speech. He let Izia help him

up, and he pulled the robe around himself. As Izia led him away, he looked over his shoulder again to make

sure Dane would be all right.

“I’m fine.” Dane knew what Lindsay was thinking, just like always. “Go get clean, little bunny.”

Of course Dane would be fine. Lindsay put his head on Izia’s shoulder and let her lead him back the

way they’d come in. Nothing in the world could ever really be wrong again.

The pool in the first room swirled as though it were waiting for Lindsay. The water had been tugging

at his ankles all the way down the passage. Izia pulled his robe away from him.

“Go on,” she said gently. “It’s quite deep, but it’s safe.”

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Lindsay let the water pull him in and the surface closed over him. It was cold, but it was the cold of

life. The currents washed him clean and tumbled him over, moving around him like great snakes. For the

longest time, he didn’t need to breathe. There was so much life in him, he wasn’t even cold, and the water

wanted him to stay. When Lindsay broke the surface at last, Taniel was waiting for him.

“Izia wants me to check your pulse.” Taniel knelt at the edge of the pool. In the lichen glow, he

looked like he was made of amber. Lindsay swam to him and Taniel felt for the beating in his throat.

Serious-faced, Taniel counted silently, his lips moving with it. “Very good.” He pulled his hand away and

smiled at Lindsay. “How do you feel?”

“Perfect.” It was the first word Lindsay could find that came close. “Where did Izia go?” How long

had he been in the water? When he looked over his shoulder at the passage to Ezqel’s laboratory, he could

see blue light rising. “Are they…did they start already?”

Dane. Lindsay scrambled out of the water, searching for his robe. Dane had been there for him when he was afraid, and he should have been there for Dane. “My robe,” he demanded, feeling tears well up

already.

“Here.” Taniel wrapped it around him. It smelled and felt clean, like it had just been washed. Lindsay

didn’t bother to wonder about it, but shoved his arms in the sleeves. Taniel didn’t let go when he tried to pull away. “Lindsay. You need to stay.” Taniel’s voice was soft but stern. “I’m needed, if you’re okay to be left alone.”

“I…” Lindsay’s eyes stung. “I’m fine.” Why hadn’t they waited for him?

“It will be well.” Taniel helped do up the robe and kissed Lindsay’s cheek. “It will be well. I know it.”

With that, he was splashing back up the passage and into the bright light.

Did Dane have something to hide? Lindsay was heartbroken and ashamed at once. He didn’t have any

right to Dane. Dane wasn’t his. He was lucky that Dane shared so much with him. He fiddled with the ties

on his robe, feeling mortal and small and dirty again.

The room was interesting enough. Maybe it was like a waiting room. Maybe not so different. Lindsay

trailed his fingers over the lichen. What did it know? And what did it say about Lindsay that lichen knew things he didn’t?

Lindsay was about to laugh at himself when a noise from the laboratory startled him. It wasn’t just a

noise. It was a cry, and it came again. There was so much pain in it, so much loss, that he was moving

before he could think better of it. Dane.

At the opening into the laboratory, Lindsay made himself stop, one hand raised to shield his eyes. The

heart looked like a sapphire now, on fire from the inside, incredibly lovely and painfully bright. It beat on Dane’s bare chest where he lay on the stone table the way Lindsay had. Ezqel was a stark shadow cutting

into the light as he moved around the table, speaking a stream of arcane words in a low voice.

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For once, Dane seemed small, what could be seen of him from here, even fragile. His skin was white

and marked with wide, dark runes that looked painted on at first glance, but went deeper than the surface,

deeper than Dane’s bones, even, down into Dane’s soul. When Lindsay looked too long, he felt as though

he could fall into the darkness of them. Now, he understood the cry of pain and loss.

Blackness welled out of the rifts, spilling over the table, dripping onto the floor like blood. Dane’s

fragile body arched, fighting. He was so strong. Lindsay remembered how empty his own body had been

when the guul heart held his magic, and yet Dane had fight left in him. When Dane cried out again, Lindsay

shook with the effort of not running to Dane’s side. It was only the faint shadows that seemed to be Taniel and Izia that let Lindsay talk himself into hanging back.

The knowledge that he was seeing what he shouldn’t beat at Lindsay’s conscience. His heart ached

with the need to go and soothe Dane, to protect him. Stop hurting him. Ezqel’s voice rose, every word like a hammer on an anvil, shaping what lay there. The light swelled again and Lindsay turned away even as he

saw something thrashing in the light that cast shadows like wings.

Half-blind, his head ringing with Ezqel’s magic and Dane’s screaming, Lindsay slunk back down the

hall toward the pool. He was shaking when he got there and he sank slowly onto a worn stone in the

shadows. The wall of the cave was rough and wet against his cheek, like everything was crying. He wiped

his face with the sleeve of his robe, then took a deep breath.

Dane would be fine, Lindsay told himself. It was time to stop falling apart. Taking another breath, he

pushed himself to his feet. He knelt at the edge of the pool and washed his face with fresh, clean water until he was sure he wasn’t crying anymore. When he raised his head, the light at the end of the hall was gone.