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He knelt at the river’s edge, placing a picked root into the water as she instructed him to. “She let you come by yourself?”

Lily’s smile was small. “No. I was hiding from her.”

“Why?”

“I thought I was in trouble.”

“For what?”

Now the questions were getting bothersome. “I did something bad.”

“What’d you do?”

Lily lifted her good hand and wiggled her fingers. “I used the Wraith when I didn’t mean to.”

Luka stared back at her. “Where is your mama now?”

“Dead.” A twinge of sadness filled her chest with how easy that was to say and how little it bothered her now. “Not by me, but by…”—Your grandfather’s Stalkers—“someone else.”

Luka drifted to silence before he thankfully refocused his interest. “Can I fix your hand now?”

Lily kept it stuck to her chest even as it became heavy. With a sigh, she gave him her hand. Luka carelessly took it into his own like he was about to wring out a rag. She winced first from the pain of it, then at the bright light that radiated from between his fingers. The heated pressure from his grip made Lily want to scream, but after a moment, it died to a dull, throbbing ache. The light faded, and he pulled away.

Luka took a wobbly step to the side, bringing a hand to his head. Lily grabbed his arm and brought him to her before he could collapse. She set him down gently on the pebbled ground before recoiling.

Her heart was racing, pleading that he was still breathing. She leaned over him, placing an ear to his mouth, holding her breath until she heard the rhythm of his. She exhaled, dropping to her back beside him and shooing away the sting of tears.

She lifted her left hand into the air, turning it back and forth. Before her eyes, the purple bruising faded to a sickly yellow as the pain vanished completely.

And all it took was one touch.

Luka slept through the entirety of the following day and then the next. Lily tidied the cabin the best she could, wrapped him in her jacket, and placed him inside. She checked on him often and concluded he was indeed sleeping. In the meantime, she went through the old, rusted belongings of the camp, finished cleaning the garden, and sharpened fallen branches to a fine point with a chipped pocketknife.

On the second day, he broke out into a sweat. Lily unwrapped him from his cocoon, rolling up his pant legs, but paused when she did his sleeves, concern pinching her expression.

Scar tissue littered the crook of both of his arms, pale against the hue of his skin. Some were thin, nearly invisible lines, others thicker and inflamed like they’d been cut over again and again. Faint red marks crossed over the entire site of his right arm like he’d been scratching at them.

Lily recognized the marks instantly—needle scars, far too many for any humane purpose. Her father had taken her blood before, simply to show her how it was done. She knew Reave had both the tools and the skill, but this… This was something else entirely. The damage was too severe for ordinary needles, the frequency suggested by the scars almost unthinkable.

Daily? More than that? Her stomach twisted. What in Ettan’s name could warrant such cruelty?

Luka’s fever faded the next morning. He emerged from the cabin while she was leaning over the side of the river, spear at the ready. Though her attention fell to his arms, she decided to prod at a different curiosity.

“You could’ve warned me before you did that,” she scolded, glancing up at him as he fumbled to find a seat beside her. “Does that usually happen when you use your influence?”

“Only when I fix something,” he said through a yawn.

“Let’s not make it a habit. I don’t need you fainting on me all the time.” She pulled her nervous gaze back to the river. “Why does that happen?”

“Mama says it’s because we share a soul. It makes us weak.”

Lily supposed that was a sufficient explanation. Using a Flare’s energy took a toll on the body, so she was told. She had never used the Wraith to the point it exhausted her, but Amalia had mentioned it could. It took intense training to build the body’s strength to channel a Flare’s influence through flesh and blood.

Since Luka’s soul was shared among several bodies, there was less energy to pull from.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

He tilted his head, staring at her blankly. “Why not?”