“So.”
I swallowed. That one word made me realize just how light and downright friendly he’d been with me. To the healers’ credit, they didn’t start sniveling.
“You wanted to experiment on me.” A smile curved his mouth again, but this one exuded the opposite of amusement.Cruelty. “Well, here I am.”
“S-Sir—” Faust stuttered. “We were only—we’re healers. It’s our duty to take care of?—”
Cas lifted one hand, silencing her with a single gesture. “You’re excused.”
They scampered so fast one would have thought Olympians were attacking the Hall for the second time in as many weeks.
I should have followed suit, but curiosity kept me glued to this spot as I watched the half-naked giant turn toward his bed, surveying it as though it held many secrets.
Never had I been so glad to sense Kleos’s arrival.
I was generally able to feel her when she was close, as I was used to her power. It felt like gold, sunshine, and sea air. In hindsight, that made complete sense, given the fact that she’d been remade into Freya by Poseidon.
The sound of her heels approached, accompanied by theswooshof Lucian’s traveling cloak. They were practically running.
Glad to have reinforcements, I cleared my throat. “What’s your name? We’ve been calling you Cas.”
He didn’t even bother to turn towards me, let alone answer.
“What in all the hells happened here?” Lucian whispered.
I glanced at him just in time to see Kleos jump to wrap her arms around me. “Hey!”
“Hey back. He’s awake,” I said, stating the obvious as I waved towards the stranger.
Lucian, for his part, was focusing on the vanished door—or rather, the residual magic around it.
I might not have any magic myself but I was raised with it here. I was pretty good at feeling it. Cas’s was potent. Devastatingly so.
“Cas,” the man repeated, as though he hadn’t been silent for a good five minutes. “It’s a good name.”
I blinked. “Sure, but what’s yours?”
He turned, and despite the arrival of a goddess and a necromancer pretty damn close to her in terms of strength, Cas’s mismatched eyes remained fixed on mine. “I don’t know.”
I opened my mouth and closed it.
“You don’t know your own name?” Concern coated Kleos’s voice. “What’s the last you remember?”
The giant shrugged. “Light. Bright blue light. Pain. Screaming.”
Bull. Shit.
He appeared perfectly lucid when he woke up mere moments ago. Didn’t he ask about the age, the year? That seemed way too specific for someone with no memory. If anything, he sounded like a bloody time traveler withtoo manymemories.
Kleos let go of me and approached Cas, Lucian immediately following her, in silence, never more than one step away in case he needed to intercede. “May I?” she asked politely, hand raised. “I’m a healer.”
I was about to mention he wasn’t impressed with healers at the moment, but Cas just nodded.
I joined Lucian, flanking Kleos’s other side protectively as her fingertips approached his forehead. Familiar golden strands of magic gathered between her palms, coating his face.
Kleos frowned. “You’re healthy,” she said slowly. “But there’s a block. Like a wall of—electricity?”
Lucian gently took one of her hands, intertwining their fingers. “How about wedon’tpoke the endless pool of energy buzzing under all that, hm?”
