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The ink on the quill that Ezqel lifted from the well was blacker than anything Lindsay had ever seen
except for the blood of the guul. When the quill came down on his skin, Lindsay had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. It felt like he was being opened up with every stroke, and the ink was seeping into him. He felt sick, like vomiting or fainting, at the sensation of Ezqel’s careful writing passing over the half-numb skin of his scars, over and over again.
The fear Lindsay felt was so much like that he’d felt at Moore’s hands back at the Institute, and Ezqel
was just as cold and cruel and powerful. Every bit of fear he tried to suppress compounded instead and he
could feel himself spiraling out of control. He had to stop. He sucked in a breath, dizzy and terrified and hating himself.
“I told you to hold still.”
Ezqel’s voice snapped Lindsay back into reality. Only then did he realize what had been rising up in
him. Terror. Horror. The smell of antiseptic and steel and electricity. The memory of the cuffs on his wrists that bound him to his bed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and it came out weak and broken. “I’m trying.” His hands were fluttering like
thin white flags, surrendering.
“That was then.” Dane’s voice was warm and golden, like the sun streaming down. “This is now,
remember?”
Lindsay looked up to see Dane standing right there in front of him, looking at him like there was no
one else in the room. Dane. The first safe thing Lindsay had known in the world was right there when he needed it—that was why he’d wanted Dane to stay.
“Make him still.” Ezqel’s frustration was palpable. “I can’t work under these conditions.”
Dane’s hands closed on Lindsay’s, huge and gentle. His tender expression washed away all Lindsay’s
shame. “Try harder,” he said, and he sounded angry, but Lindsay knew it had nothing to do with him. Dane
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had been speaking to Ezqel. There was a long, uneasy silence, and then the quill dug into Lindsay’s skin
again.
Dane’s hands were warm around Lindsay’s, and so strong. He leaned in to kiss Lindsay’s forehead.
“It’s nothing,” he murmured. “This is now, remember.”
Lindsay nodded and met Dane’s eyes. “I remember,” he whispered, but it wasn’t easy to push all that
fear aside.
With his hands anchored in Dane’s, though, Lindsay could stay still. He didn’t move while Ezqel
scrawled up his arms, down his spine, on the soles of his feet. Izia handled him like a doll, but he didn’t care. But when she lifted his hair away so that Ezqel could get at his neck, Lindsay clenched Dane’s hands
reflexively as the past rose up again.
Moore’s hands, her voice, the weight of the collar being clasped around his throat as she told him he
looked like royalty. The smell of the drugs filled Lindsay’s head, and he could taste the rubber gag they’d shoved in his mouth. The first line of the quill on his neck made his stomach lurch. He’d thought he was
being still, but as the quill drew back, he found that he was shaking.
“I’m sorry.” Lindsay was too afraid to move. If he moved, Ezqel would stop, and he’d be broken
forever. He tried, clenching his muscles tight, but he couldn’t stop shaking. “I won’t move, I’m sorry, I just, I’m trying, I…”
Dane’s mouth on Lindsay’s halted his babbling. It was a long, slow kiss, tender without being chaste,
and Dane’s tongue washed the memory of drugs and gags out of his mouth. He could feel Dane’s familiar
jagged teeth against his own tongue, and he pressed into the kiss with a whine he couldn’t stifle. By the
time Dane pulled away enough to let him breathe, Ezqel was writing again, and Lindsay was calm. He
leaned his forehead against Dane’s, breathed Dane’s breath, and let himself pretend that there was no one
else here but them.
Ezqel kept working without comment, the quill pressing hard against Lindsay’s skin. The sensation of
the sharp point dragging over the twisted, half-numb scar tissue was nauseating, but Lindsay could bear it
now. Finally, Ezqel turned away. “If you two are quite finished…”
Dane pulled back. “Only if you are.” He gave Lindsay’s hands another squeeze and stepped away.
“Lie down.” Izia came over to help. Taniel had long since pulled out a book and was carefully making
notes about the whole procedure.
Once Lindsay was flat on the cold stone table, he looked around for Ezqel so he could watch whatever
the fae mage was doing to prepare for the next step.
Izia came back to stand by his head. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe while this happens, that your
body keeps working normally. You can focus on me. You’re going to be fine.” Lindsay met Izia’s eyes.
She was some kind of healer, he reminded himself. She’d saved Dane, brought him back after he’d died.
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Ezqel opened up the dark glass cylinder and pulled out something that looked like a copper and silver
octopus with a black body. Before Lindsay had time to wonder what it was, Ezqel came over and put the
black thing on Lindsay’s chest. The guul’s heart. Lindsay had expected it to be ground up, powdered, or
made into some kind of elixir. He hadn’t expected to see it again, lying on his breastbone, heavy and wet
and warmer than his own flesh.
The smell of it hit him with all the memories of that night in Cholula, his stupidity and his terror and
the crumpling of Dane’s bones and the flash of the knife as Dane butchered the dead guul. It could have
been his own shivering making the thing move, but it seemed fresh, still twitching with life.
“This will hurt.”
That was all the warning Lindsay had. The first needle piercing his skin sent a fresh terror through
him. But there was no burn of drugs that followed and Lindsay realized that all the long, spindly “limbs” of the device had needles at the end. Bypass, Ezqel had said. Only magical, not medical.
Lindsay tried focusing on Izia, but he didn’t know her well enough for her to be able to make him feel
safe just by virtue of her presence. He turned his head, seeking out Dane instead. Lindsay focused on him,
memorizing his features, letting the familiarity soothe him as the needles slid in.
Things grew vague after that. Cold spread out from the points in Lindsay’s skin, as though his life
were being drained from him. It felt like it had when the guul was taking his magic, only he could feel the icy points where it was seeping away from him.
Izia took his face in her hands and said, “I need you to look at me.” Her hands were incredibly warm.
The cold that was even colder than his skin and the sensation of being drained all over again made
Lindsay feel sick. He stared up at her with wide eyes.
“You’re going to be fine.” Her hands were so warm, warmth that pushed into him and fought the cold
that filled him. “You’re not alone. My life is with yours. Trust me.”
“Step away from him.” Ezqel’s voice was distant and hollow.
There was something beating on Lindsay’s chest, faster and stronger than his heart, and there was a
strange blue light in the air. Lindsay felt lost, with even Izia moving away from him. He tried to turn his head toward Ezqel’s voice, but he couldn’t move. Besides, moving his head might have meant seeing
whatever it was that was so heavy and alive on his chest. Lindsay knew what it was, and he didn’t want to
think about it, about what it was doing there.
Instead of his magic being repressed, or kept from him, now it was being drawn out of him entirely.