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Jarek closed his eyes and sucked in a pained breath. “Get back to the weapons, Croll.”

Croll’s green eyes narrowed. “This has gone far enough, sir.”

“I said, get back to the weapons. We’re not finished here yet.”

Croll didn’t budge, and his lingering presence forced Lily to speak again. “Thank you, Croll.”

He turned his displeasure onto her, dipped his head, then vanished back down the tunnel.

“Lilith.” Jarek’s stern voice roused her from her daze. “I need you to tell me you’re not hurt.”

Still struggling to comprehend spoken language, she nodded.

Jarek examined the room before sliding down the wall. He ripped off what remained of the sleeve on his left arm. “We can’t stay long. Caiven knows we’re here. Novak is stalling as long as he can.”

Lily stifled a gasp. His bicep was covered in lacerations, one of which split the skin wide and deep. Crimson trickled from the wound as he tried and failed to wrap it.

Lily didn’t ask for approval, kneeling at his side and taking the cold, sticky fabric from him. She knotted the cloth tightly, recalling what she knew about Diseased vessels. Their souls gave them heightened strength and senses; they didn’t age, and they could rapidly regenerate injuries. So why wasn’t this one healing?

Her confusion wandered from the soaking linen to the holes in his clothing. Recalling the gun fire and the lack of injury anywhere else, she finally understood why he detested her resurrecting his arm in Acadia.

“Your arm is… mortal. It’s mortal, and you’re not healing, and it’s my fault.”

“This isn’t your fault.” Jarek chuckled. “But that’s not to say it isn’t inconvenient.”

“Did Caiven do this to you?” A wildfire as vicious as an angry aura ignited in her belly. “You were supposed to wait for me. What happened?”

Jarek recoiled at her tone like she smacked him. “One of Caiven’s guards got wind of your attempt to steal the girls. I cornered him to keep him from leaving, thinking I could…” He trailed off, straightening his posture, and his nervous expression warped into a glare. “You changed your route.”

Lily’s stomach twisted with nausea. She had put trust in those she shouldn’t, and her group had split because of it. Aarin saved her life, but she had no clue where he ended up, if he was even okay. Jarek held Caiven off as planned, and she wasn’t there when he needed her because she wasn’t competent enough to do what was tasked of her.

“Lilith,” Jarek said. “Look at me.” She did. “This”—he gestured to his blood-soaked arm—“was my own doing. I shouldn’t have attacked him without you.”

“But it’s so bad. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I was being advantageous and failed.” Jarek leaned in, lifting one bloody finger after the other. “What you did was lie to me, very well I might add, and in doing so broke more than one promise. You let those girls run back to Caiven, compromised the heist, not to mention the recklessness of going after a void—”

“I made a mistake,” she said calmly to trick her tears into staying put. “I’m sorry.”

Jarek’s angered stare didn’t let up, but the Serpent swam slowly, and its shadows retreated into his skin. “Apology not accepted. I haven’t been in such an unnecessarily yet necessarily panicked state since… I don’t know! Certainly not in the last three hundred years!”

“You—” Lily couldn’t hold back her nervous chortle. “You were worried about me?”

“Of course! What good am I if I can’t complete the first task Amalia expects of me? It should be the simplest, and here I am…”

Lily felt like she managed to get stung by a moth—the initial touch delicate, followed by a perplexing pinch as she grappled to figure out why it irritated her skin. That’s what this was about. Returning her to Amalia. What her life meant for his own gain. She knew that. That’s all it meant to anyone, so why did it bother her so much this time?

Tears formed again from the overbearing weight of everything coming down on her so fast. “Ah, yes,” she said to interrupt his rant. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint Amalia, would we?”

“I did not mean… Hold on.” Jarek followed her as she stood, slower than usual for him. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Lily answered, turning from the infuriating amount of shock in his expression.

“You are.”

“I am not!” Her vision blurred, but no tears stained her cheeks, and damn it, she wouldn’t let them! She brushed the back of her still-gloved hand over her eyes. “What about Caiven?”

“Lilith—”