Callan takes a breath. We stare at each other. I close my eyes as his other hand lifts, rests in my hair. He runs his fingers through it, gruff words filtering through the lingering pain.“Then you will try again. Perhaps you’ll fail again. But you do not stop trying, or they win. As long as you keep fighting, the battle is undecided. This battle is not won yet. But it is not lost, either.”
His eyes don’t leave mine as movement comes from behind me. “Out. We’ll be up in a while.”
“We heard screaming, Callan. What in Ellas’s name are youdoingto her?” Stomping footsteps. Esme crouches, her eyes widening as she takes in my face. It feels wet. “Gods, Selene. Are you alright?”
Callan shifts back, whatever lingered between us a moment before broken as his fingers slip from mine. “I’m taking the copper out. If you won’t leave, stay with her. I need to get the threads out from around the membranes.”
“Obviously I’ll stay,” Esme snaps. She takes my empty hand, her fingers cool. “You should have told me. I would have come with you.”
I look for Callan. But then I realize she’s talking to me. “Why would you do that?”
“To help, if I can.” Her brows dig together. “I’m pissed at Callan that he didn’t tell me you were doing this. You don’t have to do it on your own.”
“She’s not alone,Esmeray,” Callan snaps from somewhere above my head. “What am I, Boreasan moss?”
Esme rolls her eyes at me. But her eyes glitter with something I can’t read. “Two is better than one. Concentrate, Cal. You can’t afford to use too much maegis.”
“It’s barely anything.” He sounds exasperated. “I’m fine.”
The look on Esme’s face makes me wonder how true that is. My stomach roils once more. It only grows with Callan’s next words. “Selene, are you ready? It won’t take long.”
Esme’s grip tightens, but she says nothing.
I take a breath. “Go.”
And then there is screaming into the pillow, and pain lancing through my wings as Callan’s maegis eases the copper free of my body, unspooling it and tugging it loose.
But there is also Esme’s hand, wrapping around mine. Cool hands on my face, words in my ear, coaxing, soothing.
And Callan’s voice, steady and unyielding. “It’s done.”
Exhausted, sweat soaking my brow, the bed, I slump down, my face buried in the pillow as I suck in shaky breaths. “It’s over?”
Esme squeezes my hands. “It’s gone, Selene. It’s out.”
Cupped hands appear in my hazy vision. I look at the endless shimmering threads, crushed in Callan’s hands. There’s so much more than I thought. Not a single thread, but many – enough to fill both of his cupped palms. No wonder it felt like eternity. “Your hands—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, brushing off the reddening of his skin even as I watch, the copper reacting to the maegis that fills his eyes. The bronze gleams, almost gold. Lighter. “You need to see this. It’s all gone, Selene. Every bit of it.”
He’s sweating too. His dark hair is soaked at the front, the deep circles beneath his eyes more pronounced. As if this was not a small thing at all, that he has done for me, no matter what he tried to claim otherwise.
But he grins at me as if none of that matters. “You’re going to fly.”
I stare at that copper again. I stare until it blurs. He doesn’t move. “You’re hurting your hands. Stop—throw it away.”
Callan tosses it aside.
“You’re going tofly,” he says again. Esme glances between us, but he’s not looking at her.
He’s looking at me, his eyes bright. “You won, Selene. And you will win again.”
And this time, the smile I offer is his. Small, but I offer it anyway, for it belongs to him for the gift he has just given me. For returning something that was taken.
My eyes burn, my wings ache, but the smile stays. “Thank you.”
Chapter twenty
Callan
