Page 86 of Sonnets and Serpents
He snorted. “If only. I wouldn’t have a wound in my snake form, which would be helpful for pausing blood loss, but I’d still feel the physical strain, and injuries are taxing on my magic. I wouldn’t be able to transform for as long. With a more severe injury, I wouldn’t be able to transform at all.”
“Guess we’ll have to heal it the regular way, then.”
Eliza grabbed the supplies Iyal Kerem had left behind, and she set to work changing the wrapping on Silas’s leg. He grabbed her wrist, protesting, but she shook him off.
“Sit back, Iyal Deathsgate. I may be an uneducated princess, but I at least know the basics.”
Silas tried to think of what to say to Eliza, but for once, his mind failed him. There was toomuchto say, all of it tangled ideas and feelings that couldn’t find their way into a proper language. As a result, he sat stiffly while her soft, gentle hands wrapped his wound. His leg burned like someone had stabbed a hot poker through his calf, though Eliza’s cool fingers against his skin and her fierce concentration wrinkling the freckles across her nose made a decent distraction.
Until, at last, she finished, and Silas picked up the Artifactand pushed his way up the alley wall, testing his weight on his injured leg to stand.
“How is it?” She held her hands slightly raised, like she was ready to catch him if needed. The mouse catching a falling viper was comical enough to make Silas smile.
“Stings like Sarazan’s fangs,” he said. “But I’ll live.”
He knew what she’d want him to turn his attention to. Slowly, he limped his way back down the stairs to Henry Wycliff.
“Still have your dagger?” Silas extended his hand, and, in response to Eliza’s sharp glare, he added, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to stab your beloved.”
He pricked the small outer hollow where Henry’s hand met his wrist, squeezing out a drop of blood. The fascinating thing about Casting was that the types were intertwined: Stone Casting rested in the bones but could often be undone by blood drawn in the right way, and Fluid Casting rested in the blood but could sometimes be undone by breaking the right bone.
Understandably, not many people tried undoing Fluid Casts without the assistance of an actual Caster.
Henry stirred, and Silas backed away, resting on a crate with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Eliza knelt by Henry’s side, her hand hovering above his shoulder, as if afraid to touch him.
“Henry?” she whispered.
Slowly, the knight blinked his eyes open, and his gaze wandered a hazy path before landing on Eliza. Then he stared. Mouthing wordlessly, he pushed himself up on his elbows.
Only to be knocked back down by Eliza throwing her arms around him with a delighted shriek.
Despite himself, Silas remembered the morning she’d climbed into his bed, afraid of earthquakes. If he could relive it now, he wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t miss a moment of having her that close to him.
To what end?he asked himself.
Henry managed to sit up again, pulling Eliza with him, and his return hug was so forceful, Silas could see the strain of knuckles through skin. A decent person would give them a moment of privacy for this reunion, but he was trapped by both his leg and his bracelet. He tried to study the Artifact again, but the black symbols slid together as his vision refused to focus.
“Eliza, what are you doing here?” Henry asked hoarsely.
Eliza was crying, clutching his face with both hands. “I thought you were dead. As soon as I reached Pravusat, the first news I heard was your shipwreck. They said there were no survivors. Then I went to the tabernacle, and they’d seen you, but I wasn’t certain. Everything was so confusing and overwhelming. We searchedeverywhereand—what are you doing here? Who was that girl? How did you—”
Every word tumbled faster until she was scarcely coherent. A few scattered words even came out in Pravish, and Silas wondered idly if she was dreaming in it. Yvette had once told him the mark of absorbing a language was when it bled into dreams.
“I—” Henry stammered, clearly trying to parse the barrage. His eyes moved from Eliza for the first time, landing on Silas.
Silas lifted his fingers from the Artifact in a half-hearted wave.
“Lord Silas? You’re here too?” The knight blinked hard, as if expecting what he saw to change.
“Lord?” Eliza repeated with a frown.
“Just Silas.” Now wasn’t the time to discuss the details of his disinheritance, so he said only, “I live here. Here in Izili, not here in the dank, underground tunnels, obviously.”
Perhaps he should have explained more. Perhaps it would have erased the betrayal in Eliza’s eyes.
“You know each other?” She directed the question at Henry, her gaze cutting sharply back to him.
“We’ve crossed paths at the Reeves estate.” Henry shook his head, still looking dazed. “He was always reading. For the longest time, I thought he was Baron Reeves’s brother. Until Baron said they were friends.”
