Leaving his perch in the corner, Felipe sank onto the mattress beside Oliver. Felipe had fretted at his bedside after he had surgery to repair the damage when he stabbed him, yet this time felt scarier. Fixing a bloody wound, he understood. His magic did that all the time, but it could only fix him. He didn’t want to think about how Oliver’s power could hurt him, especially when that power was needed to keep Felipe alive. Guilt welled in his breast as he took Oliver’s hand in his. First, he passed up being the anchorite for him. Now, he was injured because of him, and constantly keeping him alive might hurt him further. Felipe blinked hard at the realization that he only made things more difficult for Oliver.
He told Oliver he would never hurt himself or take his life without telling him about those feelings, but maybe it would be better if he bowed out of life gracefully before he hurt Oliver. Ten extra months was more than any dead man could ask for. His eyes flew to Oliver’s face at a fleeting pang that stirred on the other end of the tether. It had been nearly two days since he felt Oliver’s presence, and the relief of sensing him there brought tears to his eyes. Oliver’s black brows furrowed, and his face twitched in his sleep. Whispering that he loved him and that he was there, Felipe swept the hair from Oliver’s forehead and pressed a kiss to his brow. He swore he felt Oliver’s fingers tighten around his other hand, but he quickly slid back into a fitful sleep. Soon… Soon, Oliver would wake and they could have a talk they should have had months ago.
***
Even before Oliver fully awoke, he knew something was wrong. The bed felt wrong. The sheets were too stiff and thin, the pillow beneath his head scratched his cheek, and the mattress didn’t feel like either bed he slept in. In the time it took to process he was in the wrong bed, Oliver realized he shouldn’t have been in bed. Last he remembered, he was at the holiday bazaar. There had been burning wires and curses and Mrs. Cutler had been dying and Felipe wading through black water—Felipe. Oliver snapped his eyes open and shot upright. His head swam at the sudden movement, but Felipe’s gentle hands were already closing on his arms as the mattress dipped beside him in the dark.
“Sssh, sssh, don’t try to get up, Oliver. You’re safe,” Felipe said soothingly as he rubbed Oliver’s shoulders and lowered him back against the pillows. “I’m right here.”
Oliver threw his arms around Felipe and pulled him closer as if he was he only thing keeping him moored. Hiding his face against his partner’s shoulder, Oliver bit back the sob threatening to burble out of his throat. He didn’t know why tears were running down his cheeks; they just were. Everything was too much. The only thing that felt right was the steady cadence of Felipe’s heart beneath his ear, the strong press of his arm against his back, and the rumble of his voice through his chest as he told him again that everything would be all right. Dream, nightmare, and reality were gossamer things when his head felt stuffed with cotton and he could barely see the hand in front of his face.
Pulling back, Oliver wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and blinked into the darkness. He couldn’t see much beyond that the room was very spartan and that the bed felt like the kind they used in hospitals, but it wasn’t loud enough to be a hospital. Running a hand down his chest, Oliver confirmed hisgreen waistcoat was gone, and in its place was a nightshirt. He didn’t wear nightshirts like that. Oliver’s ribs ached as he sucked in a panicked breath. His head and body felt sore like they did when he slept in way too long, his mouth was dry, and there was a dull ache in his chest. Oliver shook out his hands and eyed the shadows warily. There had to be a clock or something somewhere in the room that might tell him how long he had been asleep, but he couldn’t even find a lamp to turn on.
“Felipe, where am I?”
“You’re in the infirmary at the Paranormal Society,” Felipe said gently as he rubbed Oliver’s arm in firm strokes. “We brought you back here after you passed out at the bazaar. Do you remember that?”
Oliver shook his head and winced at the pang in his temple. He didn’t remember any of that. Swallowing against the dry knot in his throat, he tried to picture the infirmary. He had only been there a handful of times, but most of it consisted of open wards with a handful of rooms for more seriously ill or contagious patients. If he was in a room, that was bad. Oliver shook out his hands harder and struggled to breathe against the aching tightness in his chest.
“Hey, hey, take a deep breath, Oliver,” Felipe whispered as he wrapped his arms around him again. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Am I dying?” Oliver peeped. “These rooms are for very ill people.”
Felipe silently sighed and held him tighter, his cheek pressing against Oliver’s temple. “No, love, you aren’t dying, and you never will if I have anything to say about it. You fainted when Mrs. Cutler’s tether snapped, and Dr. Perkins moved you into a private room to keep you calm.” At Oliver’s confused look, Felipe asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Oliver wasn’t sure. He remembered tethering Mrs. Cutler and the healers arriving to help. Everything after that became hazy. There was a moment of triumph when he realized it was working, and her bruising started to reverse as one healer repaired her blood vessels while another stimulated her blood to push it out of her tissues. Everything after that was haze and chaos. Oliver rubbed his chest over where the second tether had been. The spot felt heavy and raw, and while it wasn’t as bad as when he was stabbed, he still felt bone tired.
“I remember tethering Mrs. Cutler. She started to get better… Then, nothing after that. Is she— Did she make it?”
A trickle of cold shame crossed the tether. “I’m not sure. Truthfully, I didn’t care and didn’t ask. I was too worried about you. Last I heard she was still alive. How are you feeling?”
“Like I really overslept. My head hurts.”
“Oliver, I—” Felipe stared into his eyes for a long moment before drawing in a rough breath. “I’m so sorry. I should have stayed at your side. If we hadn’t split up and I hadn’t been so focused on going after that damned thing in the fountain, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You getting hurt. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been moving so much. I felt you tether her, but I couldn’t stop. By the time I got to you—”
At the misery and fatigue in his voice, Oliver rested his hand on Felipe’s cheek and turned it toward him. His wet eyes glowed orange in the dark, and at least a day’s worth of beard rasped against his palm.
“Felipe, you didn’t do anything wrong. How were you supposed to know to stop? I neither asked nor expected you to. You aren’t a mind reader.”
“But I could feel the strain and kept going anyway.”
“Darling, I never expected you to stop moving. I didn’t anticipate having to tether her, but once I knew I had to, I did it knowing the risk. Whatever happened to me, it wasn’t your fault.”
Oliver couldn’t see his face, but he could hear Felipe swallow and felt his jaw work beneath his hand. Guilt and shame clotted across the tether in time with Felipe shutting eyes. Oliver didn’t know what to say to convince him he knew the risks of tethering her, so instead, he licked his dry lips and with a pang of dread asked, “What day is it?”
“Tuesday, I think.”
“Tuesday!? The bazaar was on Sunday!” Oliver cried, his heart in his throat.
“Sssh, please calm down, Oliver. Dr. Perkins said you need to stay calm, or you’ll hurt yourself again.”
Grinding his teeth, Oliver drew in a tight breath and forced the rising panic down. He didn’t like this; he didn’t like the gaps in his memory. “Was I unconscious on my own or did someone knock me out?”
“Both,” Felipe said slowly. “Your nose started to bleed from strain right before Mrs. Cutler’s tether snapped, and as soon as it did, you fainted. When you didn’t immediately wake up, the healers worked on you too. They said you overtaxed your magic, and Dr. Perkins mentioned something about your blood pressure being extremely high when they brought you in. He said they had to sedate you because he was worried you might have damaged your heart from the strain, and knocking you out was the only way to give you time to recover and stay calm.”
