Blood on my hands. Waking and fighting against the restraints that bound my wrists and ankles. Hearing screams.
A table, and bright lights, and a lot of pain, and colors and tastes and smells, and much more screaming. I focused on Axton’s voice, a soft and steady drone, narrating everything that he saw and did as he operated.
More bright light and screaming. Hundreds of spiders crawled across me, a dark spray of needles falling out of the ceiling like sharp rain. I twitched and heard Axton again. His voice shook as he told me he couldn’t stop them.
“I can’t die in bed,” I protested around a mouth full of spider legs. Axton grabbed my hand and said something, but I couldn’t hear it over my own shrieks as something began to move inside me.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Dark wood, smoke-stained. Not my house.
“General.” Papers rustled and Axton leaned over the bed. I turned my head, blinking. The walls were dark stone. Blackstone. I was still in the hospital. I tried to say something, but all I managed was a rough croak.
“Don’t try to sit up.” Axton touched my shoulder, his grey eyes solemn. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded.
“See me?”
My mouth was too dry to respond. I nodded again. He looked the same. No — cleaner. Better-dressed. Time had passed.
“I’ll bring some water. Can you move your hands and feet?”
I twitched them and Axton nodded with approval.
“Good.”
He poured a glass of water from a white pitcher on the table by the bed. I fought to pull myself up. He slid an arm around my back and helped me. His hand steadied mine as I lifted the cup to my lips and drank, just a few sips before I felt tired again.
“One more experiment.” He moved the pillows behind me so I could lean back, propped against the headboard. “Close your eyes. What do you smell?”
“Marchpane,” I croaked. I opened my eyes again and saw him rewrap the candy. He slid it into his waistcoat pocket.
A waistcoat. Simple, black, and new. It looked like something Michael would wear.
“Michael…?”
“He’s well. He can still see.” Axton took a deep breath and let it out, gazing at me. “How much do you remember?”
“We were in hell.”
“Yes. Good. You don’t exhibit any signs of brain damage, General, although it will take some time to be certain.”
“Crappy. Bedside manner.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Where ….” I licked my cracked lips, tasting blood. Axton handed me the glass of water again and helped me drink.
“Lorencz? Your cousin? They’ve both been here. Magister Carel, Inspector Jaspin and Caro have stopped by, as well. They’ve been waiting for you to regain consciousness.”
“Girl?” I remembered her hand in mine, pulling me through Cislunar. I’d made her a promise.
“Yes, Caro. The children are well and show no lingering damage from the nix or their experience across the Line. Magister Carel has put them in the Vigilance and Jaspin is keeping a close eye on them. Nobilis Aronson tells me that the Vigilance’s board of directors is in an uproar.”
“How long. Have I been. Unconscious?”
His eyes slid away, then snapped back to my face. I frowned. Marchpane. Marchpane was a Winter’s Feast candy. The fires had started during Winterfaire. So, assuming that time operated normally across the Line, I’d been under —
“A little over a month, General,” he said. “It took me three tries to get all the bone shards out of your wound. The tissue was already infected when we got you to the hospital. You contracted brain fever. Toward the end, you were going into convulsions. I thought you were going to die.”
I closed my eyes. A month. Brain fever. No wonder I felt exhausted.
“Thanks,” I said, my voice rough with disuse. I coughed and opened my eyes again. “For saving me.”
“I didn’t. I’m sorry. You’re only alive now because Yzyrchye healed you.”
I flashed on the screaming and the fountain of needles and probes falling through the ceiling. Cold sweat ran down my sides and I fought to throw off my covers. Axton pushed me back down again, palms flat on my shoulders. I collapsed, glaring. Nobody as slightly built as Axton should be able to overpower me.
“I think we should talk about this later, General.”
“Now.” I locked eyes with him. He studied me a moment, then inclined his head.
“You summoned Yzyrchye. Not consciously, I don’t think, but toward the end you were raving. You were in so much pain that I had to tie you to the bed frame to keep you from hurting yourself. We moved you down here, to the old wing, in case your pain triggered a transient incursion. Lorencz wanted to keep you drugged, but I was afraid drugs would exacerbate the damage to your mind. I decided to keep your mind clear.”
I stared, waiting.
“Do you want to hear this now?” he asked, gently.
“No.” I closed my eyes, tears of frustration burning past my lids. Dammit. I wasn’t strong enough to hear the rest, and I hated myself for it.
“General — Yzyrchye cured you. You would have died, otherwise.” Axton’s hand stayed on my shoulder, a light but steady pressure.
“You were there.”
“I have been by your side ever since we brought you back. I will stay as long as you need me, General.”
I opened my eyes to lamplight. I groaned, trying to roll over. Axton was asleep in a wooden chair by the bed. He stirred, yawning. The room was so cold that I could see his breath. He blinked, looked around, and saw that I was awake.
“Tell me,” I rasped, trying to prop myself up on an elbow. He moved the pillows again and helped me sit up. I drank more water, with his help, and he took up the thread of the story as though nothing had interrupted us.
“You were going into convulsions and burning up with fever. I decided to attempt one last experimental procedure. It had very little chance of success, but it was the only thing I hadn’t tried. The chances were high that it would simply put you into a coma.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Next time. Don’t. I don’t want to be in a coma. I’d rather be dead.”
“All right. I’ll remember, General.”
We were silent for a moment.
“Go on,” I said, at last.
“I was preparing to drug you. That’s when the Line broke. If I’d been a sentinel, I might have seen it coming, but everything looked normal until the air started to glow. Yzyrchye moved in at once. If I hadn’t leaped backward, I think it would have just sliced through me and performed its operation like that.”
“Yes….”
“All I could see were its limbs, but I recognized them and decided not to interfere. I wasn’t sure if it was killing or curing you, but under the circumstances….” He made a small gesture. “You eventually stopped screaming. I assumed that was a good sign. It worked on you for almost an hour.”
“You were talking while it worked.” I looked at him. “I heard you.”
“Your eyes were open. I’ve read that some patients retain memories even while they’re drugged, so I try to explain everything that I’m doing during an operation. I hope it reassures them, if they’re listening. And in your case … Yzyrche was inside your skull, and your eyes were open and moving back and forth. It was amazing. So, I talked.”
I laughed, a gasping, weak sound.
“‘Amazing’?”
He leaned forward.
“Watching Yzyrchye operate on you like that was terrifying and amazing. I feel privileged to have been able to see it.”
It was the most emotion I’d ever heard in his voice, but I thought I understood him at last. Axton was like me. He wasn’t afraid to look away.
“Do you want to hear more, or would you rather wait?” he asked.
I looked down at the blankets again, reassuring myself that all of my limbs were intact.
“More.”
“Yzyrchye’s probes patched you back up and sealed your wounds with the same resinous bale we encountered across the Line. Then they withdrew. When they returned, they were carrying Might.”
“No!” I pushed myself higher, searching the room.
“It’s under the bed. Yzyrchye left it in your hands, but I removed it. I assume you would have healed faster if I’d left it with you, but I didn’t want the captain and Nobilis Aronson to see it.”
I licked my dry lips, looked for the water. This time I could hold the glass myself after Axton gave it to me. I felt a fleeting wish that it was something stronger and pushed the old craving aside. Bad enough that one addiction had returned.
He took the glass back after I emptied it. His hands were cold.
“Why?” I asked at last. “Hide it?”
“The operation was too risky to be approved by Blackstone’s board of directors, General. I arranged to do it by myself. Secretly. Which means that I’m the only person who knows that Yzyrchye healed you. Everybody else thinks I did it. The university even invited me to lecture on the procedure. I declined, of course.” He ran a hand through his short, dark hair in a nervous gesture. “It was as close as I’ve come to telling a lie in decades, General. It makes me very uncomfortable. But your cousin and Captain Lorencz told me how difficult it had been for you to break free of Yzyrchye’s influence and seemed very proud to have helped you. They kept reassuring each other that even if you died, you’d die free. I didn’t want to disappoint them by letting them know that Might was back.” He gave me a sad look. “It’s your truth to tell them, if you want. That you’re still Yzyrchye’s Hound.”
“I’m not its Hound!” I winced, my head throbbing. “I’ll just throw the damn thing across the Line again.”
“I’m sure we can arrange that, General.” His voice was quiet, soothing, and I realized that I was weak and sick and my emotions were running out of control. I leaned back against the pillows and focused on my breathing. Self-discipline. That was what I needed. Self-discipline and rest.
“Thank you,” I said, after my heartbeat had slowed down. I took one more deep breath and let it out. “I am tired of being Yzyrchye’s Hound.”
“We can get rid of Might without the nobilis or Captain Lorencz ever knowing. I’m sure Milka or one of the other children can call Far and have him take the sword back across the Line.”
“I don’t know if Might is safe in Far’s hands.” I rubbed my face, feeling a roughly cut beard, then ran a hand over my head. The hair around the injury had been shorn, and my skin was still tender.
“Be careful. You’re still healing. The bale sloughed off last week, so I removed the bandages that had been concealing it. But the wounds are still raw.”
I dropped my hand. If Axton had left Might with me, I would have healed overnight. But then everyone would have known that I wasn’t free of Yzyrchye’s grasp.
“I’m never going to get rid of it, am I?” I asked at last.
“Maybe not.” Axton was his usual comforting self. “But you can set it aside again. Nobody needs to know that you still have it.”
“You won’t write about it in your paper?”
“I have redrafted my treatise, General. But I haven’t mentioned Yzyrchye’s intervention or Might’s return. Neither is relevant to my observations about your psychological state.”
“You think you have me safely locked up and labeled?” I remembered the room back in the asylum that had displayed our bodies under glass. I wondered if Axton analyzed himself as dispassionately as he analyzed everyone around him.
“I don’t know if you are safely locked up and labeled,” he replied. “You’re changing. The conclusions I drew after the hopscotch murders had to be changed when we returned from across the Line, and those observations may become inapplicable again once you’re well enough to leave this bed.”
“More revisions.”
“They’re part of the process. I find studying your behavior similar to watching Yzyrchye’s operation — frightening and fascinating.”
“I’m just another paper, huh?”
“Is that self-pity, General? Shall I ask Captain Lorencz to hit you?”
I gave a weak laugh, rubbing my face with my hands. I hated being ill. I hated losing control.
“She’s been telling you stories,” I said, when my voice was steady again.
Another one of his rare smiles passed over his face. For a moment it completely transformed him, and then it vanished.
“The captain mentioned your unsympathetic method of counseling,” he admitted.
“I expect more sophisticated treatment from an alienist.” I looked at him. “How are she and Elliot doing?”
“They are working on a satisfactory relationship.”
“Did she tell you what happened across the Line?”
Axton didn’t answer. I supposed he wouldn’t if Lorencz was talking to him on some kind of professional basis. I was glad my partner hadn’t broken up with her boyfriend, though. She’d be impossible to work with if she had.
“When can I get out of here?”
“Perhaps in a few more days. In the meantime, I’ll bring you the new draft of my paper. You may find it interesting. At least it will help pass the time.”
“What if I hate it?”
“I’ve already had a clerk make a second copy, in case you destroy the first.”
“I haven’t lost that much control.” I closed my eyes before self-pity could creep up on me again. “Take Might out of here. Put it in my house.”
“As you wish.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“I wrapped it in a blanket when I took it off of your bed the first time. It didn’t do anything to me.”
“My keys are in my clothes, wherever they are.” I described the house’s traps so that Axton wouldn’t fall afoul of them. By the time I was through, I was tired again.
“I’ll see to it, General,” he promised, standing. “Although it means I’ll have to leave you for a while.”
I waved a feeble hand. I’d never asked him to stay in the first place.
“I’ll also tell Captain Lorencz and the others that you are recovering. They’ll want to visit you.”
“I’ll brace myself.” I looked at him. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes he had on when I’d first opened my eyes. I thought I’d only been asleep for an hour or two, but maybe it had been longer. He was wearing a new shirt and a different waistcoat. “You’re dressing better.”
“Yes.” He moved my pillows, helping me lie flat again. “The nobilis insists I dress professionally.”
“He would.”
Axton was silent a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was nearly a whisper.
“Do you remember, across the Line, when you saw the blood on my scalpel?”
“Yes.” I pried my eyes back open to look at him.
“When I was in Hellsgate, I realized there was an advantage to being so filthy that nobody wanted to touch me.”
I remembered what I’d seen in the locked rooms of his mind. Small, slight, young — Axton would have been easy prey in prison.
“You feel safe now,” I surmised.
“Safer.” He pulled up my blanket and stepped back. “Hellsgate nearly destroyed me. But hell was quite therapeutic.”
“Couldn’t have been that bad. You wrote all those papers in prison.”
He looked away.
“Some time … after … after … I started interviewing the most dangerous inmates. They liked it. The attention flattered them. So they protected me. And writing kept my mind off … off everything else.”
“And now you’ve attached yourself to Michael and me. You think we’ll protect you?”
“That … that was one of my motives. At first.” He shifted, still avoiding my eyes, but I saw the flush creeping up his cheeks. “Your cousin has treated me very kindly. And I was impressed by the way you looked after everybody across the Line. I would never have predicted it, before. So — I know my friendship isn’t worth much, but I’d like to offer it, anyway. Instead of … just my professional acquaintance. If you would care to have it.”
My first thought was that I didn’t need a friend, especially a friend like Axton. He wasn’t strong, or wealthy, or powerful … but he’d been brave and resourceful, and he hadn’t abandoned me when I was dying. I could count the number of people who’d do that for me on one hand and have fingers left over.
“You’ll regret it.” I felt exhausted. “I’m hell to get along with.”
“I can handle hell.”
“You want me to kill some people for you, once I’m back on my feet?”
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want murder to form the basis of our relationship.”
“I should make a rude joke about that.” I closed my eyes. “Give me a minute.”
Then I fell asleep.