Despite its apparent fragility, Petra was astonished at what her mate had accomplished, and deeply humbled that she’d had some small part in seeing it come to fruition.
Sigils, unseen until that moment, blazed to life all around the table and bathed the body in a kaleidoscope of colors.
She had no doubt that they would have a fight on their hands when the truth of what Tal was came to light. People would be scared. Some would think it was blasphemous, a crime against the gods, necromancy, or a slap in the face of the natural order of things.
But at that moment, when her magic blazed a path from sigils to shadow to body, sheknewit was a miracle. It was magic that flowed through the grooves and joints of Tal’s new form. If there was such a thing as the divine, Petra could find no better proof of it than that.
Glory was the goddess of warmth and magic and sunlight, but she was the goddess of wildfires and wrath and rebirth, too. And when the empty eye sockets began to glow, somethingpassed over the back of her neck — a warm, tender touch from a hand unseen.
There was one last flare, a controlled explosion of magic so intense Petra had to close her eyes and turn her head away instinctively.
Then it was over. Her ears rang. The stench of magic and blood and something like ozone permeated every breath.
When the spots cleared from her vision, Petra turned her head just in time to see Silas stagger away from the table. She rushed to him, heart pounding, and caught his arm before he stumbled into one of the machines. “Are you okay?”
Silas shook his head hard and blinked several times. The expression on his face was slack-jawed with awe. “Holyshit.”
Petra’s hands fluttered around him uselessly. “Demon, are you okay? What’s wrong? Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine.” A laugh exploded out of him. It had an edge to it, the kind of laugh one might let out after being pulled out of the way of a moving vehicle. Focusing on her, he gasped, “Good gods, Petra. Is that what it’s like for you all the time?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like you’ve got a supernova inside you. Like it could burn you alive.”
Petra gave him a questioning look. “Isn’t that what everyone’s magic feels like?”
Silas stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “Having all that inside of you with nowhere to go— No wonder witches blow up. Using my magic isn’t like that. I thought my cells were roasting one by one. Ineverwant to try that again. As soon as the m-generator is running, we’re calling in that favor.”
“Well,” she replied, “I don’t thinkblow upis really accurate. And you are half demon, so?—”
A metallicclunkinterrupted her. Petra and Silas shared a wide-eyed glance for the span of a heartbeat before they both whirled around to stare at the table.
At some point the lights had come back on. They cast a soft yellow glow over the enormous form sitting up on the table. Two huge hands curled over the edges, one finger at a time, almost like he was practicing his grip.
Tal sat very still. There were no tiny motions that gave the subconscious indication of life — no movement of the chest with each breath, no twitching fingers, no blinking. He simply sat there, eyes blazing with an ever-shifting range of colored light, until he slowly, so very slowly, turned his head to peer at them.
“He—llo,”he whispered, synthetic lips forming the word with some difficulty.
Petra could scarcely breathe, but she still somehow whispered, “It worked. It really worked.”
Silas shook himself and broke away from her. “Everything normal?” he demanded, voice pitched a little higher than usual, as he came to a stop at Tal’s side. Silas’s gaze swept over his brother’s huge body, assessing his work like he hadn’t just completely shattered the wall between life and death. “Can you move everything? How’s the temperature?”
He can feel temperature?Petra’s mind spun. She knew he’d said something about a synthetic nervous system and skin, but…
“It’s… wa-rm,” Tal replied. His voice was deep, kind of throaty in a way that reminded her of crooners from the 1950s. She wondered if Silas had made that, too, or if that was something Tal had brought with him. Petra couldn’t even begin to guess how that would work.
The wraith slowly moved his hands away from the edges of the table and held them up to his eyes. Flexing his fingers in and out of fists, he added, “Hands work. Toes… also.”
“Can you stand?”
“I… don’t know.”
“Let’s find out.” Silas held out his hand to his brother. Tal looked at it for a long time before he tentatively raised his own and clasped Silas’s forearm.
Petra blinked back a wave of intense emotion as she watched her mate help Tal off the table. He didn’t rush him or get impatient when the wraith took a moment to consider every small movement required. And when Tal’s huge feet touched the ground, Silas held him steady, his own knees locked to take his brother’s weight when at first his knees couldn’t hold him.
The white sheet that had covered his groin slid away. Petra was glad neither men paid attention to her when she found herself balking at what was revealed. Hastily averting her gaze, she decided it wasn’t appropriate to ask questions likewho decided to make it that biganddid Silas have to hand-sculpt that?
