Page 67 of The Witch They Fear

I just barely met him. And we don’t exactly have the dynamic for fast friends.

"And now?"

I look at him. At the hazel eyes catching the light. At the composed, unreadable face that cracked open for three seconds in a doorway when he saw my burned arms. Maybe I imagined that?

"I'm working on it," I say.

He holds my gaze. Nods once. Doesn't push.

His eyes drop to my forearms. I'm wearing Nellie's t-shirt, the sleeves stopping above my elbows. My arms are bare. Smooth. Unmarked. The handprint burns are gone. Completely.

"You went to the infirmary," he says.

"No."

A pause. He processes that. I watch him do the math—the burns were deep, blistering, would have scarred without magical intervention. The infirmary uses witch-based healing, which is effective but probably gradual. It wouldn't erase scarring that clean.

Not in a week.

"Vampire blood," he says. Quiet.

I don't confirm or deny.

"Whose?"

I look at the sidewalk. At the crack in the concrete where a weed is pushing through. At anything that isn't his hazel eyes asking a question I'm not going to answer.

And I do anything I can not to think about who gave me their blood.

"Calypso." His voice is different. Lower. The professional cadence stripped back to something underneath that sounds dangerously close to personal. "Whose blood is in your system?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes,” he hisses.

"I'm handling it," I say.

His jaw shifts. The centimeter tell. But this time it's followed by something else—his nostrils flare, barely perceptible, and his chin drops a fraction. Like he's scenting the air. Like he's trying to pick up the residual trace of whoever's blood healed my skin.

Don't think about it. Think about the market. Think about the rosemary. Think about literally anything else.

"Handling it," he repeats. Flat. Testing the words. "You didn't go to the infirmary. You didn't come to me. But someone else's blood is in your system and you're handling it."

"That's what I said."

"The burns were deep. Second degree at minimum. Whoever healed them gave you a significant amount." His voice is level but the composure is costing him something—I can see it in the tension along his forearms, the way his hands have gone from relaxed at his sides to slightly curled. "That kind of healing doesn't happen with a drop. You had to ingest it."

The word ingest hangs between us. He chose it deliberately. Clinical. But underneath the clinical is the image—a wrist at my mouth, blood on my tongue, a cold chest against my spine—

Nope. Rosemary. Bayou. Nellie's mom's cornbread. Think about cornbread.

I can’t think about what happened without my magic surging. I curl my fingers into my palms preemptively. Check for sparks. Nothing yet.

Good.

"Did you choose to?" he asks. ‘

"What? Aamon—"