Before anyone could stop her, she shoved her ruined arm against his mouth.
Nothing happened.
Thalia counted in her head, barely breathing, as time moved so slowly. She started crying again.
He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.
Because she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him that she loved him. That if he died, she was as good as a ghost. That this life meant nothing without him in it.
She cursed her mother, who was dead behind her.
Cursed whatever death god watched from the shadows, wishing to steal him.
She wouldn’t let them take him.
Cassius was good, and kind, and strong. He deserved more than to succumb to madness.
Thalia grabbed her dagger, slicing her arm to the bone.
Someone started, but she shoved her arm back against Cassius’s lips, forced his mouth to part so her blood trickled into his throat.
Slowly, like watching morning dew dry up in the sun, color began to bleed into his face, like an ink stain spreading across water.
Her tears mixed with her blood, but his skin began knitting itself back together, muscle and sinew pulling itself by the seams at his hips, then his gaping chest.
Her head lightened, but she ignored it. Ignored the way her vision blackened around the edges.
Cassius’s chest rose, a breath stuttering out.
Then his hand gripped her wrist, his tongue poking into the cut along her arm. His throat worked as he took drags of her blood, as she willed it to move into Cassius’s body, to fix what was broken inside him. Thalia ran her hand over though his hair, fingers snaring on the strands.
Her heart rate was slowing, each beat shorter than the last.
She didn’t care.
Because he would be alive, and that’s all that mattered.
“Get ready,” someone murmured, perhaps Larellia. “We’ll need to suspend him the moment he wakes.”
Thalia’s fingers were slowing their strokes, her vision spotting with darkness.
Cassius’s eyes flew open, the irises glowing.
“Now—”
“Wait.” Keegan’s harsh voice halted the command. “Just wait.”
Cassius focused on her, his pupils blown out, his fingers pressing gently into her wrist. She was nearly slumped over him, her braided hair brushing against his cheek.
Finally, he pulled his mouth away, just as Thalia’s vision went black.
“Shit.” Keegan caught her, and she fought hard to keep her eyes open. Someone touched her arm, a curly head out of the corner of her vision. Blinding white seemed to glow around her forearm, but she couldn’t tell what was happening.
Cassius lay there, his eyes open, although he didn’t seem to focus on anything. Merely stared up at the broken canopy of leaves above his head.
His chest rose and fell, but it didn’t seem like he was even really breathing. That any oxygen was getting down into his lungs.
Lady Decima stepped away; whatever she’d done to Thalia’s arm had healed it. Or at least patched it up enough that she was able to weakly shove herself out of Keegan’s hold.
