The cuffs, blazing furnaces wrapped tight around my wrists, singed and stripped the tender areas of skin. It was only a matter of time before they left nothing but bone.
No time to run somewhere private, I dashed into the closest stall and tugged up the sleeves of my blazer, biting down on my cry. The damage was worse than it felt. Inflamed red welts. Charred and blackened spots of necrotic skin.
“Give us a minute,” Leland said softly, and footsteps — Case’s — trailed out, the main door to the washroom audibly locking with a bolt sliding behind him.
Water filled my eyes and sweat poured from every pore.
“Etherizing?” Leland asked from outside the stall.
My fingers hovered a centimeter above the left cuff’s clasp, my abdomen contracting as I braced to touch the metal, which I’dhave to burn my fingertips to unhook.
“Burns,” I choked. My hand snapped back in stinging pain.
“I’m coming in.” He pushed into the small space, holding a small stone wastebin. “Wrists,” he said, and directed me to hold my wrists out over the bucket he was holding. The cuffs magically unclasped, hitting the bottom of the stone receptacle with a denseclang.
“Vanishing this,” said Leland. He placed a hand to my back and Vanished the silk blazer, leaving me agasp in a tight-fitting, V-neck, knit vest. “Let’s go to the sink,” he said. “I want to treat your burns before you start disappearing.”
I followed him to the row of three sinks, holding my bleeding wrists out, the thought of brushing them against my sides unbearable. Leland put the wastebin in the left sink, and — with a hand on my back — steered me to the far right. A second later, I understood why. The tap turned on with his magic. My cuffs were doused in a cascade of cold water, and steam shot up like a geyser.
“Burn cream,” he said, and ripped the cap from the tube of medicinal ointment that had just appeared in his hand, then set the cap on the flecked granite counter. “I don’t want to hurt you by putting my hands on your wrists right now.” Healing, he meant, because he’d have to touch me for the tactile requirement of the spell. “The cream will take care of it, but you need to do it quickly. Do you want help?”
I shook my head, and holding my breath, picked up the tube and coated my hands in a thick layer of the clove-scented ointment. An icy wave of pain rooted out the burn, then tingling followed.
In a minute, it was over. Treated. I stood in silence with no idea how to fix the rest of me.
“Better?” Leland asked, trying to catch my eyes in the wide mirror.
No. Not really.
My wrist pain was better, but I wasn’t. Heat continued beating down on me, my blood stirring in agitation now that I had no cuffs to suppress my withdrawals. Pools of sweat bled through my clothes and left damp spots all over me. Mascara smudged my lower lash line in a watery mess. My bangs, the hair sticking to the base of my neck — all of it was soaking wet.
“Here.” Leland grabbed a handful of brown paper towels and set them down on the counter next to a flask of moonale. “Wash your hands and start drinking. Cuffs are done. You burned through them.”
I burned through a house, I realized, remembering how much gold they’d cost. But I listened, running the tap, stretching my fingers as cool water splashed my hands. Everything was working — the nerves were feeling, and the joints were functioning. But I was in shock and frozen.Burning. But frozen.
Having dried my hands with a paper towel, I blotted my chest with the rest of the stack, the paper towels unpeeling from my skin with sticky sounds. Leland Vanished my balled-up trash as sweat poured out of me faster than I could mop it, so he grabbed more paper towels, the cycle unending.
“Can I?” he asked and lifted my hair in the least romantic way possible, holding it to my head, pressing a bundle of ice wrapped in a cotton cloth to my neck.
A thrilling shiver ran up and down my spine at his touch as it occurred to me that the ice wasn’t from his pocket realm. He held it in place, and if I could’ve spoken, I might’ve called him out on it. But it wasn’t needed. A shift in him confirmed my suspicion. The ice was him. Somehow, he’d cast elemental magic.
His eyes changed first, their hardness fading to a soft ache. There was a noticeable difference in the rise and fall of his chest, and either he’d pressed into me, or I’d pressed back against him,but he was there. Flush. Not moving. His muscles were solid, his sturdiness holding me up. And I could hear —feel— his heart beating like mine did, like maybe if it beat fast enough, it would beat too fast to slow down, and then this feeling wouldn’t fade or stop or end before we figured out what it meant. The bond? Or was it elemental magic? Or was it only another fantasy I was keeping alive in my head?
We breathed — or tried to. Both our breaths uneven and struggling to sync to the same rhythm. He lifted the bundle of ice from my neck and pressed it to a spot slightly lower on my spine. I washed my hands a second time, no reason — other than to blush down at the smooth, uncracked porcelain of the sink basin instead of through the mirror at him.
Leland pulled the ice away, gently smoothed out my hair, and backed up a step. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I nodded blankly at the drain. He’d only said sorry, but I heard the parts he didn’t say as well, the closest he’d come to admitting it — Leland could Heal. He could cast elements. He Scried. Who knew what else he hid.
Maybe showing was his way of telling. Maybe he was Tongue Bound. Maybe this was the secret he’d made the Dark Deal to protect. But I was in too much shock over nearly losing my wrists to ask him about it.
“You’re not speaking to me,” he said.
I had nothing to say to that.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“No.”
