He opened bleary eyes and bit back a cry as he tried to push up with his hands.
Everything rushed back to him. Agatha. His wrecked hands.
Alden.
Pixel sat up in the bed and took him by the forearms, stilling him. “You can’t touch things! Jamie said so.”
He smiled blearily at her use of Ivy’s nickname for the thin, strange Servant boy. Juniper watched him, a pillow clutched against her middle. The knot on her head was now a deep, purpling bruise. She wore a clean green shirt over her baggy pants, and there was something different about her face.
When her mouth twitched, he realized what it was. She didn’t look so sad.
“Are you staying with us?” he asked, surprised.
“I can sleep on the floor instead.” Her fingers dug into the pillow.
“Withus. With Reed. With the gang.” Nate’s hands felt like they’d grown three times in size. Pinkish clear fluid leaked through the bandages, and he tore his eyes away from them quickly. He didn’t want to picture what was underneath.
“If she wants to, she can.” Reed stood in the doorway to the small room. He gave Juniper an encouraging nod. “I trust you on account of what you did to Agatha. But we don’t solve problems with violence if we can help it. You can’t go about gutting anyone else.”
“Unless they hurt us?” Juniper asked.
“Even then, there might be better ways. Promise you’re not bloodthirsty?” he asked with a faint hint of a smile.
“I’m not.” Juniper shuddered. “I didn’t like doing that.”
Ivy poked her head through the doorway beside Reed. “Anyone awake in there?”
“All of them,” Reed said.
“Nate, I need to change your bandages. Think you can walk?”
He started to assure her that he didn’t need his hands to walk, but the moment he crawled off the bed his knees trembled, and he stumbled. A flutter of panic rose—was he getting sick already?
“James said you’ll be wobbly for a few days.” Reed caught Nate with a gentle grip. “Be careful.”
It felt natural to have Reed close. Touching him.
Dazed, Nate gave himself a moment to lean in to Reed’s side. He wanted to reach for his hand and squeeze it. But he wasn’t even certain he had fingers anymore.
“I’ll be right here,” Reed whispered, knowing exactly what Nate needed hear better than Nate did himself.
Nate followed Ivy in a daze. He didn’t remember taking his boots off, but his feet were bare and quiet against the worn wood floor. He realized he was wearing clean clothes too. They were baggy and smelled old in a way he couldn’t place.
She helped him up a flight of stairs. “This is my room,” she said.
It was full of mismatched furniture from decades ago—all of it faded but very soft. A small unmade bed crowded a corner, and the rest was a jumble of chairs and dressers and cracked mirrors and plastic bins full of bandages and vials. It smelled lived-in and comfortable, like bedding dried out on a line on a clear day.
“You look tired,” she said.
“I get that a lot.” Nate tried, and failed, to brush his hair behind his ears, awkward under her scrutiny. He sat down and drew his heels up to the chair and hugged his knees.
She pulled a chair up beside him and rifled through a plastic bin full of medical supplies. “Do you think you’re growing weak already? I don’t know how much Remedy you were able to get at Agatha’s. . .I don’t know what to expect.”
Nate furrowed his brow, taking stock of how he felt. It was difficult to tell with so much hurting, but he was pretty sure it was the kind of pain to be expected. Not the aching, deep weakness of the stillness coming over him. “I don’t feel bad that way.”
She began unraveling the bandages on his hands. “It’ll still be a race against time.”
“It’s not a race.” Nate’s jaw clenched. “Not if you can’t win.”
