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Not to take.

To give.

Soulglimmer. There had been soulglimmer, though nothing like the small measure I pass into a wounded mortal to ease their suffering. It had poured through me until I could no longer distinguish the pain of my injuries from the searing heat spreading beneath my skin, and somewhere beyond it all, the creature had been holding something in its other hand.

Something blue.

A soul.

Not mine.

I remember understanding that much even then, though I had no name for what I was seeing. The creature had taken the soul of another dying mortal and pressed it into me alongside its own power, flooding my broken body with enough soulglimmer to burn away what remained of the man I had been.

Not to heal.

To change.

It had made something of me that no longer needed a beating heart to live, and when the last of the light faded, the wounds that ought to have killed me no longer mattered.

A life for a life.

Of course.

25

OPHELIA

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe⁠—

No, no, no. Don't you dare stop now.

Another thin scrape of air drags through the muck in my throat, and my eyes flutter with relief.

There. See? Still breathing.

The hat's gone, though. He was at the grating a moment ago, wasn't he?

Oh, I don’t know…

The darkness has gone a peculiar shade of grey, with pale, greasy rings swimming across my vision whenever I try to focus. I can’t make out the walls anymore, and the torn wound in my groin has finally stopped hurting. I can still feel the ragged flesh against my thigh, but it's gone so numb that I might as well be lying on somebody else's leg.

Well. That's something, I suppose.

I've been wishing the bloody thing would stop hurting for days.

I just hadn't expected it to stop quite like this.

They’re still praying up there, but it’s just like bees now, droning somewhere in a field far out of reach.

“…deliver… snare… fowler… noisome…”

Gideon will be cold up there. He always forgets his woollen stockings.

I ought to remind him.

But the thought slips away, and I find myself listening to the long silence between my heartbeats. It really is taking its time now. I wait for another, wondering whether I ought to be doing something about it, but even that seems like rather a lot of trouble.

Perhaps I could just stop trying to breathe.