“Just wanted to remind you what it looks like in capable hands.”
He lifts the blade slightly. The air hums with it. He tilts the blade a fraction and the air sings with it. It’s beautiful and haunting both.
The words slip out before I can catch them. “I miss it.”
“Then you’re in luck,” he says softly. “Because I’m going to transfer some of our power to you. But just a bit.”
Something inside me tightens. “Transfer,” I echo slowly. “Like… battery to battery transfer?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Something like that.”
He steps closer, close enough that the hum of the blade vibrates along my skin like static heat building toward lightning. It feels eerily similar to the dagger I pulled out of that other Reaper’s scythe… except this isn’t foreign. Isn’t theft. This feels like being plugged back into myself.
His hand finds my wrist. The contact is cold. It feels like touching a phantom limb you didn’t know you lost until it was suddenly back.
My breath catches.
“Don’t fight it,” he murmurs.
Which, of course, makes every stubborn part of me tense on instinct—right until the surge hits.
The energy slips under my skin like melted ice, like winterstorm breath force-fed straight into my bloodstream. It fills the hollow places in me, the scraped-out caverns where mystrength should live. I lock my knees to keep from folding. It feels like milliseconds before it’s over. Pain releases me. The scythe dissolves into nothing, like it was never there at all, and I find myself missing it all over again.
“You’re welcome,” Pain says dryly.
I blink hard, trying to steady my breathing.
“Thanks,” I mutter, flexing my fingers.
I straighten by degrees, rolling my shoulders once, then again, testing myself. I feel… better. Power-hungry, sure, but much, much better. The ache in my limbs is dulled, like someone’s wrapped them in thick cloth. My head feels clearer. I am stronger.
Then reality clicks.
I freeze. Narrow my eyes.
“Wait a damn minute.” I plant my hands on my hips. “You could do that all this time?”
There’s a beat of still silence before the slowest, most infuriating smirk creeps across his face like he’s been waiting for this.
“Of course I could.”
Oh, this little parasite.
“Forthreedays?” I snap.
“For three days,” he confirms, smug and utterly unapologetic.
“You—” I stare at him, speechless. “You really do deserve to get your wings cut off.”
He tilts his head, ravenlike. “You were unconscious. I figured you’d either wake up or you wouldn’t. Why waste energy on a coin toss?”
“A coin toss?” I choke.
“Figure of speech,” he says. “More like a slow horse race where you were the only horse and the finish line was ‘not collapsing in the hallway like a sack of wet laundry.’”
I squint at him. “You’re this close to getting slapped.”
He only smirks wider. “Go ahead. Might shake loose some more power.”
