Her brow lifts. “Stealing from the injured?”
“Borrowing.”
“That knife likes me better.”
“It has poor taste.”
A tiny sound escapes her. Pain catches it halfway through. I hate her pain more than the gray thing. No. Hate is too small.
I heat the knife’s edge against a shard of warm stone near the sample’s glow, then wipe it clean. It is not perfect, but enough for Tajss. Nothing is perfect here but danger.
“This will hurt,” I say.
“You’re supposed to lie then.”
“No.”
“I know. Annoying.”
I set two fingers around the first gray mark, holding the skin steady without widening the cut. Her pulse pounds beneath my touch. It is too fast.
Mine, something whispers. No.
I scrape the residue free. Sera goes rigid. No sound. Her free hand grips the stone shelf hard enough to whiten her knuckles. I want her to make sound. I want to take the pain. I want to rip the dead chamber apart until nothing gray remains in the world.
I scrape the second mark. Her breath hisses between her teeth.
“Good,” I say.
“Do not praise me like a child.”
“I was praising the breath.”
She grimaces and shakes her head.
“Then the breath accepts.”
I scrape the third. This one is deeper.
Gray threads cling inside the torn skin, as thin as hair and too straight to be natural. I hook them with the blade tip and pull. They resist. Then they come free in one tiny strand. The strand curls against the knife. Jointed. Scentless. Dead, perhaps. Perhaps not. Sera sees it and her eyes go flat.
“That was in my arm,” she says.
“Yes.”
“I dislike that.”
“I agree.”
“Are you going to become terrifying now?”
“I am trying not to.”
Her gaze holds mine. Not mocking. Not afraid of me. Afraid for me, perhaps. That is worse.
“Keep trying,” she says.
The red of bijass retreats one finger-width. I wrap the gray thread in a scrap of mineral cloth and set it apart from the sample. Then I reach into my pack for the treated hide strip.
