Cinn’s fingers brushed against his cheek. Wiping them. “Why are you crying?”
Julien hadn’t realised that he had been. “I thought I’d killed you.”
“What? Yousavedme.”
“Elliotsaved you. I just dragged you here.” After he himself was as much help as a potato. “Elliot…” he managed, before his guilt forced his throat shut. “We need to go find him. The umbraphage sliced his chest open.”
Cinn slowly unpeeled himself from the cocoon he’d made in Julien’s arms. As he stood up, he sucked in a breath of air, wincing and holding up his damaged wrist. “The burns hurt where the band is touching them.”
“Take it off,” said Julien, reaching for Cinn’s injured palm to assess it. At leastthatinjury wasn’t as bad as he’d thought—raw, red skin, yes, but no welts. He brought it to his lips. “We can move it to your other wrist.”
Cinn held the band for a moment, closing his eyes in concentration as he widened the metal, then slid it off himself with great care not to touch his skin.
He held it up in the light. “I guess the umbraphage… overpowered it somehow? But I better keep it on,” he said with reluctance, slipping it onto his other wrist.
“He’s awake!” came a shout from the path’s entrance, and Darcy’s beaming smile appeared like the rising sun. “Did you use the Zenolique?”
Julien nodded, hoping Cinn didn’t ask what questionable substance he’d forced down his throat.
“Elliot’s been taken back to the van. The rest of them have finally dispersed the two umbraphages. For now, obviously.” She frowned. “Madame Sinclair said that it was the trickiest battle against them so far. There was one more casualty. One of Elliot’s friends, I think. They became moteblown, collapsed unconscious, and then one went for him.”
“They channelled too much?” Cinn asked.
“Channelled motes for too long, or in too large a quantity. It rarely kills you, but you can become seriously weakened. Moteblessed that focus on physical channelling spend hours training and priming their body, but it still occasionally happens.” Julien recalled those gruelling days all too well. He and Elliot would often spend hours and hours together, at the camp they both attended every summer as teenagers, pushing their bodies to the limit as they challenged each other to channel more at once and for longer.
Returning to the van, they found things in a state of disarray, with many wounded members of the gendarmerie slumped on crates. Even the uninjured officers looked awful, displaying the telltale signs of over-channelling—pale, trembling, disorientated. They were lucky only one of them had become moteblown.
Finding Elliot wasn’t hard. He came charging towards them, a disgruntled paramedic shouting after him. He was shirtless, his torso wrapped in white bandages. Inwardly, Julien let out a sigh of relief, gazing up at the heavens in thanks. What he’d have done if Elliot had died because of him, he couldn’t begin to fathom.
“It’s just one more battle scar,” Elliot was saying to Darcy’s fussing.
Julien shuffled forwards, to quietly say, “Thank you.”
“I was hardlynotgoing to rush to your rescue, was I? Especially as Cinn decided to have a nap on the ground.”
Cinn scowled at him, but there was a playful edge to it.
What Elliotshouldbe doing was calling Julien out on his shortcomings. He should shout at him, tell him he should have reached for the lumenmotes himself, even though he was extremely out of practice, to at least haveattemptedto protect the three of them.
Of course, Elliot wouldn’t do that to him. Julien offered him a grateful smile, which he returned, albeit with eyes crinkled with worry.
Eleanor appeared, barking orders at them to go and find a bathtub, shooting Julien a withering glare. Yes, it was true, they’d definitely beenmore hindrance than help today, but Julien was still glad he’d forced his way into the Baths. Because if he hadn’t, who else would have been there to drag Cinn out of danger?
And then cuddle him until he woke up, to be kissed half to death?
Julien’s eyes slid sideways to Cinn. For an electric moment, their gazes burrowed into each other, until dots of dark pink bloomed on Cinn’s cheeks and he looked away.
“I can’t. I want to. God help me, I want to so much, but I can’t,”he’d whispered to Julien in Paris.
Later, Cinn would likely inform him the kiss was a temporary lapse of judgement.
A one-time thing, never to be repeated.
For now, Julien would cherish the lingering feeling of his lips on his.
twenty-one
Cinn
