“Don’t.” Ranth’s voice in my ear sent shivers down my spine. I yanked my hand back, part of me knowing he was right, and the other part annoyed that he was telling me what to do. I moved farther from Ranth, so he couldn’t surprise me like that again.
Harold’s hand lingered over the page as if he had found something. Before I could ask, golden tentacles lifted from the paper, wrapping around Harold’s hand like a delicate octopus.
Ranth breathed out, “What is he?”
As my brain caught up, the golden tracery embedded itself into Harold’s skin, caging his hand and wrist in a golden lattice gauntlet.
Harold raised his head. His eye color had deepened to emerald green speckled with glowing golden flecks.
“Let’s see about that chain now, shall we?” Harold’s gravelly voice cut in, gesturing to my arm. His smooth face was now deeply lined, as if he’d aged thirty years. The need to be closer to him drew me like a bear to honey.
Ranth shouted out reasons why the green man should not mess with the bracelet.
Feeling like I was trapped in a bizarre video game, but mesmerized by Harold’s shiny arm, I tugged up my sleeve, starting to wonder if this was really a good idea. Ranth likely had far more experience with this than I did. But I wanted the bracelet off...
“Maybe we should talk about this first,” I choked out, pulling back my arm, but Harold’s hand darted out like the strike of a cobra. Sparks exploded out of the shimmering mesh as his hand connected with the bracelet. I screamed as pain flamed over my skin, but I couldn’t move. The light of the mesh and the explosion of pain cloaked me in gold. My existence was burning.
Then Harold let go of me.
I crumpled, lost to the agony incinerating my insides and only vaguely aware that Harold crouched beside me. If I could have moved, I would have curled around my burning arm. Instead, I lay with my back against a cabinet, whimpering. I was dying. It was over.
“Sorrel, get up!”
The looping plaster design on the ceiling blurred with Ranth yelling at me. Inky hair swung past my face as Ranth leaned menacingly over Harold like an angry lion.
Flashes of golden pain were interspersed with moments of lucidity, peppered by fragments of shouted words. Then a verdant haze descended, and the pain stopped. Ranth’s featherlike fingers brushed tear-soaked hair off my face. There were two tiny scars on his cheeks, a round dot of light skin under his right eye, and a silvery line near the tip of his nose. His brown eyes had little speckles of gold, not unlike the gold lattice. He was so beautiful.
His arm slid around me to help me sit up, and I rolled into him, my body seeking his. His scent swirled around us like incense.
“The bracelet?” I rasped, glancing at my arm. But I already knew it was gone. I looked around on the floor, but Ranth shook his head.
“The curse has been altered,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Did I die? I mean, am I dead?” My throat was scraped raw, and a hollow dread crept over me as I rubbed the place the bracelet had been. Now there were purple markings, not quite tattoos, but more like purple henna.
“You’re not dead.” Ranth’s hand slid up my sleeve and curled under my arm, tugging me up. My skin sang under his touch. He let go of me, but I leaned against him, inhaling his musk like it was a rare perfume made for me. The perfect scent I wanted to rub all over me. Did he really smell like that in real life, or was it this place?
The brush of butterflies in my chest turned into flapping, pecking birds. Underneath the gold bracelet on Ranth’s arm, a new purple-black tattoo spiraled his arm up to his elbow. I couldn’t read the script, but I bet Ori could get a translation. His fingers traced the letters as if it was also strange to him. I traced over mine. Were they connected?
“I don’t understand. Somehow…” Ranth stiffened. He turned and leaped at the Green Man. “What have you done to me?” he seethed, but he stopped short of the Green Man, his hands clenching the air as if there was an invisible wall, and he was now frozen in ice.
Harold shook his head and walked toward the door.
“Wait, no, don’t leave us. Ranth, you ungratefulastragalus. Harold, wait.” I staggered past Ranth, using counters and shelves to keep me upright as the room wavered. Ranth caught my arm and spun me to him. His intensity radiated in waves likeheat on a sidewalk. “You don’t understand. He transferred my curse back to me and then bound us together.”
I stilled. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s made the curse permanentto both of us. Now if you die, I will die too.” He clenched his teeth like he was ready to kill something.
“Right? So, nothing has changed?”
“Everything has changed,” he said, holding out his arm. “It’s written right here.” He stroked the tattoo.
“I can’t read that,” I replied.
“It says clearly that if one of us dies, we both do, to pay the pact.”
My skin chilled, and I hugged myself as my mind wrapped around the problem. “You’re saying if the Essifers kill you, I die by default?”
