The letter crinkles between my fingers as the words register in pieces:
SOS.
Coordinates on theback.
Something attacked us.
They need my blood to fix what happened.
Please help me.
I need you.
I need all of you.
—Harper
A.C. is carved into the seal.
Sebastian’s fists clench until the knuckles blanch. “He’s with her.”
“And so is whatever hurt her,” comes out steadier than I feel. It isn’t comfort, it’s truth. Harper asking for help is serious. Harper begging is catastrophic.
Sebastian drags a hand down his face, breath coming too fast until he forces control back into his limbs, organizing chaos into something functional. The fury doesn’t leave his eyes, but it focuses. Sharpens. He looks to me for direction, shoulders squared despite the tremble beneath his skin.
“When do we leave?”
The letter folds neatly between my hands, a poor attempt to contain the terror gnawing beneath my ribs.
“Now.”
HARPER
Helping Althea strip away the remnants of Ares’s shredded shirt feels like peeling raw skin from bone. Every time the fabric pulls, he winces; every time he winces, something in my ribcage twists. Blood has soaked through so much of the material that it clings to him like a second, decaying skin, and each tear of it reeks of iron and poison. The IV tube feeding my blood into his arm coils between us like an oath Inever meant to make, but half an hour in, the faintest wash of color returns to his face. The sight steadies me even as waves of dizziness keep knocking my balance sideways. Losing this much blood feels like drifting underwater while someone else holds the rope to the surface.
At some point, we moved him into one of Althea’s spare rooms, the two of us maneuvering his deadweight body inch by inch down the narrow cottage hallway. The infection halted the moment my blood began its course through him; everything else still threatens to eat him alive. Althea mutters diagnostic spells under her breath, working with frantic precision, fingers stained with unfamiliar roots and golden tinctures.
“We have to get every scrap off him. Anything from that Fetch left on his skin will drag the poison deeper.” She grips his shoulder and hauls him forward so I can peel the last piece away.
The moment his torso is fully bared, the air changes.
Black ink arcs across him, vines twisting up his waist, blooming across his ribs, swallowing his collarbone before spilling over his shoulder and down the carved line of his arm. Two worn rings hang from a silver chain around his neck; the metal glints against skin that carries too many stories. My eyes drift lower before I can stop them, toward the sharp curve of his hip, the edge of a serpent tattoo slithering up from his V-line, its body bold and unapologetically placed as if guarding something sacred. His scars… gods, his scars are everywhere. He is a tapestry of carved wounds, burned sigils, claw marks, lash marks, each one evidence of a life scraped raw.
“All of those scars… they’re because of my father.” My voice fractures as my hand skims along the plane of his stomach. His skin is warm beneath my fingertips. I trace the line of one half-healed gash from the Fetch, the edges softening under the influence of my blood.
“Is that really all you see?” Althea asks, pulling a chair over as she watches me with unsettling intensity. Her tone carries something brittle in it, the way someone sounds when they’re asking a question they already know the answer to.
His forehead glistens with sweat. I pull a thin blanket up over his hips, gather a cloth, and rest it against his brow. Sleep holds him in its claws, his breathing slow and unguarded in a way Ares never allows himself to be when awake. Something about it strips me open. I slide a chair beside his bed, leaning forward until my face is level with his. A faint scar crosses his cheekbone, almost delicate compared to the brutality of the others. My fingers lift toward his face, brushing one of the stray curls away from his eyes.
“Why does he keep doing this?” My thumb pauses on his jaw. “Throwing himself into danger for me?”
Althea rocks back on her chair, exhaustion clinging to her shoulders like a weighted cloak. “Does nothing in your life feel… off to you?”
A scoff leaves me before I can rein it in. “In what way?”
“Wrong,” she clarifies. “Rushed. Incomplete. Like every time you try to recall something important, the memory bends out of shape?” She rubs at her eyes and lets out a dark laugh. “Your father made sure none of us could speak plainly. We’re cursed, Harper. Try to explain too much, and it’ll tear your throat apart.”
My palm brushes Ares’s cheek again, grounding me as the room threatens to tilt. “I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles.”
