Rachel worked quickly, pouring the contents into a glass jar and heating it separately from the tea pot. Miranda only distantly watched as Rachel worked with the blood until a few silver drops bubbled to the surface of the coagulating mess in the jar. Carefully extracting the silvery beads, Rachel added them to the rest of the potion. The liquid inside shifted from blue to deep purple, shimmery threads of grey swirling near the surface.
Miranda cycled through all the warnings Gideon had given her. Trembling as Rachel pressed a clean cup of the potion into her hand. She wasn’t trying to make this worse, but she didn’t see another way. Not when it had taken so long for anyone to gethere in the first place. The doctor still hadn’t arrived and finding one might take more time than they had.
Miranda eased Devin’s head into her lap. She stroked his hair back from his forehead where sweat had pasted it to his skin. Easing his lips apart, she hesitated.
“The whole thing?”
Gideon raised his shoulders. “If you’re going to do it, might as well do it. You don’t want to risk it only half working.”
“But I could ease him into it, see how he responds?”
“I don’t have the answers, Wilde, this is a highly untested bottle of fuckingDivineblood in there. We’re talking gods and magic. He’s also part human, so there’s always a chance that could make it worse or better. We can flip a coin about it. But the fact remains, you wanted to make this choice, then you gotta make it.”
Miranda closed her eyes.
She had no idea what the right call was.
She started to pour the potion into Devin’s mouth, and when he sputtered, she pulled it back. He’d only swallowed half the contents. Was that enough? Would it be enough?
The room was pin-drop silent as everyone watched Devin for a sign that something was happening. And then he sucked in a loud, full breath, eyes flying open and screamed.
Miranda prayed to the Divine she hadn’t just made a deadly mistake.
Devin’s entire body was boiling. An excruciating blaze snaked through his veins and set his insides on fire. If he wasn’t dead, he might have preferred it.
It lasted an eternity.
Then suddenly ended.
Devin took a slow breath in and out. His lungs were no longer on fire.
When he opened his eyes, he felt the moon like a physical presence, enveloping him with energy and calm. Soothing. Odd that he felt it so…much. His connection to the moon had always been distant. Maybe he had been too inebriated to notice before.
He sat up, blinking as the room spun and then snapped into crystal clear focus. Despite the heavy shadows and darkness, he could see everything in perfect definition. He would have noticed a pin dropping in the farthest corner. And he recognized this room. It was the bedchamber furthest from the master suite, meant for illustrious visitors like dukes and kings, back when those were a thing. It was the room he used when he spent the night here, if he didn’t fall asleep half drunk in the study. The room where he’d brought Miranda and…
He had died.
The memories of last night were scattered, vague. The one thing he knew with certainty was that he had thought he’d breathed his last.
A sound to his left drew his attention and he nearly fell out of the bed. It was the loudest breath he’d ever heard. The source was Miranda, curled up on a couch that hadn’t been there before. She was breathing gently, peacefully. Why did it sound like he was inside her lungs, rather than half a room away?
And her aura wasbrighter. If it blazed before, now he saw a sun and he had to shield his eyes so she didn't burn his retinas.
Taking careful breaths, Devin opened his eyes to Miranda’s corner of the room, this time he shifted his focus. Concentrated on the sleeping Miranda, on her half-parted lips, her cheek squished against her hand. As he took in each new detail, the brightness of her aura dimmed until it was a faint shimmer inthe background. Shifting his focus was the key to muting the colors. He’d have to learn how to do it subconsciously in the future.
Wait.
The full sequence of events caught up to him all at once. Miranda. Graves. He was stabbed.
Devin scrambled out of the bed, reaching for his side. His fingers slipped over a bandage saturated in blood and his heart stuttered. Was he a ghost?
He tore the bandage away—whoever wrapped it had done so thoroughly—until he reached clean, unmarred skin.
Was he dead or not?
He didn’tfeeldead. Actually, relatively speaking, he had never felt more alive.
“Devin?” Miranda stirred, blinking sleep away and squinting into the darkness. The only moonlight hit the bed, highlighting bloody, empty sheets. “Devin?” She stood, eyes searching, but passing right over him. “Devin!”
