Gideon stared at me like his brain was still buffering.
I stared back, trying very hard not to show how much it hurt to see him like this.
Up close, the damage was worse.
Bruises bloomed along his jaw in ugly shades of purple and blue. Dried blood crusted on his hairline. The shadows shackling his wrists weren’t passive bindings. They pulsed rhythmically, tightening every few breaths like they were checking his pulse and punishing him for still having one.
“You’re real,” he said again, less like a question, more like an accusation.
“Unfortunately for both of us,” I said, swallowing past the ache in my throat. “Yeah.”
His gaze flicked over me, fast and assessing, lingering a fraction too long at my butterfly mark before he dragged it away.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped. “Lose a bet?”
“Rescuing you, apparently,” I said. “Believe me, this was not on top of my daily planner.”
One corner of his mouth twitched.
The rest of him didn’t move.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
It was a stupid question. My Hedge Witch brain knew that. My eyes knew that. But my mouth asked anyway, because sometimes you just need the person to say it.
He let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan.
“That depends,” he said. “On your definition of walk. If it includes falling down immediately and decorating the floor with internal organs, then yes. Absolutely.”
“So that’s a no,” I said softly.
He dropped his gaze, breath rough.
The chains at his wrists pulsed again.
He flinched, barely, his fingers curling.
Anger flared, hot and sharp under my breastbone.
“Okay,” I muttered, stepping closer. “One thing at a time.”
I knelt beside him.
The marble leached warmth out of my knees instantly. Up close, I could see the sigils etched around the shadow bands on his wrists in delicate, cruel lines, designed to channel pain back into whoever tried to break them.
The priestess’s work.
Of course.
“Don’t,” Gideon said hoarsely, as I reached for the nearest band. “They’re keyed to her. You touch them, they bite.”
“So do I,” I said.
I hovered my fingers just above the band, not quite touching, feeling for the texture of the magic. It hummed, low and ugly, twined with the same signature I’d felt in the square…her path, her hunger, her particular brand of ownership.
Mine.
Hers.
