“And so was asking Mr. Goh to make the serum to retrieve your memories of the stowaway.” Raya held the perfume bottle out to Lily. “Do you or do you not want to save Rasmus?”
Lily clenched her teeth and swiped the perfume bottle from Raya’s hand. She knelt by the cot and pulled the bottle’s stopper off. She waved the fragrance in front of Rasmus’s nose.
Raya stood over them, her tether to Q wound so tight, every breath she and Q took made it quiver.
“Rasmus?” Lily clutched the edge of the cot. “Can you hear me?”
Rasmus lay silent, his eye a window into the nothingness inside him. His chest moved up and down, but only to mimic life.
“I hope you didn’t trade anything you’d miss for this.” Lily stood up and threw the empty perfume bottle on the floor. It rolled beneath the cot. “Manon calls herself an artist. And she is one—the kind that cons you. Nothing good ever comes from opening locked doors. You can never trust what you find behind them.”
“Maybe it…um…just needs some more time.” Raya chewed a ragged cuticle on her thumb.
“I’m very familiar with how fragrances work, Ms. Sia. They fool you with pretty illusions as quickly as they fade—” Lily’s eyes rolled to the back of her head.
“Lily!” Raya gasped.
Lily dropped like a dead weight. Q lunged and caught her. He cursed, holding her head in the crook of his arm. “Were we tricked?”
Ice slithered up from Raya’s ankles. “I—”
Air hissed between Rasmus’s teeth. He bolted up. “Whathappened?” His gaze froze over Lily and Q. “You,” he grunted, flinging himself at Q. Q toppled backward, dropping Lily on the floor. Her cheek slammed against jade. Rasmus wrapped his hands around Q’s throat.
“Rasmus!” Raya pulled on his arm. “Stop!”
Rasmus tightened his grip. Q wheezed.
Lily’s eyes fluttered open. “Rasmus?” She blinked and jumped to her feet. “Rasmus! Let him go.”
Rasmus threw a glance over his shoulder. “Lily…”
Q choked and coughed.
Rasmus looked back at him and blanched. “Oh god.” He let go of Q and scrambled off him. “I…I’m so sorry.”
Q sat up, gasping for breath.
Raya ran over to him. “Are you okay?”
Q nodded, clutching his throat.
Rasmus burrowed his face in his hands. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Come with me.” Lily led him to a leather chair behind a mahogany desk. “Sit. Everything will be okay.”
Rasmus sat down, making the chair squeak. “I’m sorry, Q.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Q coughed and drew his hand away from the red finger-shaped marks on his neck. “You were confused, that’s all.”
Rasmus nodded slowly. “I was.”
“How are you feeling now?” Raya said.
“I…I’m not sure.”
Lily clasped Rasmus’s shoulder. “You need to rest.”
He inhaled sharply. “The stowaway—”
