Quinn #2
I leaned over the microscope, letting my magic gently seep into the sample. “I’ll let you know in a second.”
The bluish glow of my magic lit up the slide. I winced, closing my eyes.
“Sagray?” If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought Tobias sounded panicked. “Are you okay?”
“Let me focus, Maris,” I chided. “A little light won’t hurt me.”
He swore under his breath, his voice closer than before. At least he hadn’t tried to hold me back again.
My magic engulfed the sample, the blue flooding the red as I focused on the virus itself. It felt as though it was repelling me—like it sensed an intruder trying to separate it from its host.
“It feels like the bands,” I whispered, shuddering as I realized why it felt familiar. “Like Silvius somehow warped it. This magic feels similar.”
“That makes sense considering it’s blocking her magic.” Tobias sounded carefully detached. “Is it even curable?”
As I pulled back, I nearly collided with Tobias. Goosebumps rose along my skin with the sudden awareness of his nearness. He stared at me intently from where he stood inches away.
“Of course,” I said quickly. “It has to be.”
“You’ve always been painfully optimistic,” he said flatly.
I shrugged. “And you’ve always expected disaster.”
Tobias simply arched an eyebrow at me, as if to say, Was I wrong?
I met his unblinking gaze, noting the way the ice seemed to thaw behind his eyes the longer he watched me. A shiver ran through me as that stare dipped again to my lips.
He glanced down at where goosebumps had multiplied on my arms. “You’re cold.”
It wasn’t a question. I was still in the dress I wore for dinner, and the sterile room had grown colder as the night progressed.
Tobias backed away, retrieving his jacket from the back of a chair. My mouth parted in surprise as he stalked back toward me.
“Here.” He draped the jacket over me without waiting for me to respond. It hung loose on my shoulders, the length of the sleeves almost comically long.
I wrapped it around me, breathing that comforting scent of him in as I did. “Thanks.”
He looked away, absentmindedly rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
I didn’t let my eyes linger on the scars that circled his wrists, their bands layered over each other.
Not because I thought there was something ugly about them—far from it.
Like Eva’s, they were a mark of his survival.
But I knew how self-conscious he would be if he caught me staring.
His gaze rested on where the bottom of his jacket reached nearly mid-thigh. “I take it you aren’t going to sleep anytime soon?”
“It wouldn’t be my first all-nighter,” I said, tracing the embroidery on the jacket’s lapels.
Tobias followed the path of my fingers, his jaw flexing. “What’s next?”
I stifled a yawn. “If you want to go to bed, you don’t need to—”
“Don’t insult me by finishing that sentence.” Tobias fixed me with a glare, daring me to continue. “Tell me what else we can do.”
I rolled my eyes at his dramatics, though the corner of my mouth betrayed my smile. “We test for antibodies in the plasma. We’re lucky she’s fae or it would take longer for her immune system to react adaptively.”
“And after that?”
I looked over at the bookshelf behind Silvius’s desk. Tobias followed my gaze.
“More research?”
I paused, considering how to phrase this.
“I need to understand more about the blood magic Silvius used to create the bands, since it seems to be the premise of how Silvius bound a virus to her blood. Most books that have anything to do with blood magic have been destroyed…from what I understand, at least.” My cheeks warmed, though Tobias didn’t show any reaction to my interest in the subject.
“If I could understand the theory…maybe find more information about how Aviel managed to create the bloodbond between him and Eva. Anything could be helpful,” I added quickly.
“I’m guessing that’s easier said than done with how cagey everyone is about me simply drawing her blood. ”
“You think that’ll be in a book?”
“Aviel was a siphon, but the dark magic was learned,” I said with more surety than I felt. “And Silvius is a scientist, which means there should be notes somewhere unless he took them with him.”
A muscle twitched in Tobias’s jaw. “Or you c-can just ask me.”
He was avoiding looking at me, the slight flush on his cheeks either from my attention or a reaction to the stutter I was careful to ignore.
It was obvious it bothered him, though it only happened intermittently now.
It seemed to have gotten much better the longer it had been since he was freed of the mask that silenced him.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think—”
“No need to be sorry.” Tobias’s tone sent a chill down my spine, the blank look on his face worse than anger. It scared me how easily he blocked his emotions out, though I was certain it was how he had survived all those years in Morehaven’s dungeon.
It had likely taken more courage than I realized for him to even come down here.
“I’m not sure about the process of making the bands, only that it was blood magic that locked it,” Tobias said, his voice clipped.
“But Aviel…he spent four years stealing my blood along with my magic. He must have siphoned someone with the magic needed to create the bloodbond.” I stiffened, but Tobias kept talking, his words tumbling out as though, now that he had begun, he couldn’t lock them back in.
“From what I could tell, the process was simply intention and magic, just like most of the magic in this realm—along with a red glow at his fingertips when he touched my blood.” It was my turn to school my face into that false calm.
“I’m sure he would have been more careful about what he did in front of me if he thought I’d ever escape. ”
Four years. I had been in college with his sister, going on dates, getting drunk at parties…
and he had been tortured in ways it made me nauseous to think about.
How often had he assumed he would die in that dungeon?
How long had he held out hope he would be rescued, only for it to dim each day he remained trapped and utterly alone?
“Was he planning on killing you?” I couldn’t keep the horror from my voice. “I thought he needed you…not only for finding Eva, but to siphon your magic to maintain the charade he was Celestial.”
“Oh, he told me when my death would be,” Tobias said so matter-of-factly my skin crawled.
“When he used Eva to go through the Choosing and stole the power of the land as his own, there wouldn’t be a use for me anymore.
I’m the one who hoped he might slip sooner…
” He abruptly stopped talking, running a hand over his face. “S-sorry. It’s been a long night.”
I had the overwhelming urge to wrap my arms around him. Either that or scream into the void at a world that refused to stop taking from that boy with an easy smile until he was hollowed out and broken.
But he hadn’t broken, had he? He survived the king that murdered his parents as well as mine. He found a way to stay strong—and sane—all those years, even as they took his blood along with his magic.
All it had cost him was the light in his eyes—the spark that had nothing to do with his power.
I knew better than to give in to the urge to comfort him. He would likely take it as pity. Or worse, push me away yet again. I wouldn’t risk that happening now that we were finally working together, even if he was only doing it out of necessity and obligation.
If only he knew the way I felt was the furthest thing from pity.
What burned inside me was rage—raw and unbridled, raging for release.
Rage that was laced with sorrow and threaded through with guilt that not only hadn’t I known to save him from what Aviel put him through, but I was still failing to help him now.
Red filled my vision. I quickly turned away, shoving my hands into the pockets of his jacket to hide the power building there. This wasn’t the time to explain, especially not after what Tobias had shared.
At least it was a start in the right direction. Maybe one day he would feel comfortable enough not to shut away his fears, his torment, and face everything that had been taken from him. Maybe one day, he would find a way to remove the mask that had long since been destroyed.
Maybe one day, I would remove mine and we could scream together.