Page 36 of Bloodwitch

“Scar,” he said at last.

She had no idea what he meant. “I don’t—” she began.

“Scar,” he repeated, more emphatic, and though his gaze didn’t move, his thumb did. It grazed—slightly, slightly—over her wrist.Then onto her palm to where, yes, therewasa faint scar. Earned from a fisherman’s hook in Veñaza City.

“My fault.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

His thumb moved, back up her palm toward her wrist. His skin was rough. His touch was not.

And Iseult’s entire body shut down. There was no other way to describe it. No other words for how still everything inside of her went. No breath, no heartbeat, no vision beyond Aeduan’s thumb tracing along her hand.

“Why?” he murmured eventually, finger finally slowing at her pulse point.

“Why… what?” She had no idea how she got those words out.

Aeduan swallowed, the muscles of his neck, his throat strong, even if his body was weak. “Why are you still here?”

She blinked, surprise briefly shrinking her tongue. Briefly calming her mind. “Where else would I go? Did… did you need me to get something else for you?”

“No. Not that—” He broke off, coughing, and his fingers finally released Iseult. Suddenly, the skin around her wrist felt too cold. At odds with the rest of her body, which was blistering from the inside out.

“With Owl,” Aeduan rasped once the coughing had passed. “And… me. Why do you stay?”

“Oh.” It was the last thing she expected him to ask, and for half a skittering moment, Iseult feared he had somehow seen the note from Mathew in her pocket. Somehow he knew that she had other options before her. Except that this was impossible—she had only just received the message. There was no way Aeduan could know that someone was coming for her.

And why do you care if he does know?her brain demanded.He knows that you seek your Threadsister. He knows that you have Thread-family and that you cannot stay beside him forever.

Well, he may know that,whispered the tiny secret corner above her lung.But do you?

“I… owe you life-debts,” Iseult offered eventually. It was the only explanation she had ever put into words for herself. “Many of them. Why? D-doyou want me to leave?”

So hard to squeeze out those words, and Aeduan offered no response. Instead, he simply stared at her, unblinking and inescapable, and with each passing second, his eyes shed more sleep. Awareness hardened in his gaze.

All while the room grew hotter and hotter and Iseult’s tongue grew fatter and fatter. Now she realized her heart had never stopped, her lungs had never paused. It was just that they’d been hidden behind the expanse of him. Of his eyes, of his fingers, of his touch.

Beside her, Aeduan heaved himself into a sitting position. A moan of pain, a spasm of agony, yet Iseult made no move to help him.No.Instead, she simply watched as the seconds ground past and internally chanted,Stasis.A futile refrain really, for once Aeduan had straightened fully and set to removing his shirt, it became too frustrating for Iseult to endure. His pain shivered in the air between them. The urge to yank off his shirt for him—it made her fingers flex against her thighs.

She was a pot about to boil over.

Iseult pushed upright. A bit frantic, a bit loud, but no movement came from the bed, no shift in Owl’s Threads as Iseult returned to the now barren table. She gripped its edges, then forced her gaze to the mirror. To her own reflection, where hazel eyes glinted in the lantern light.

Stasis, stasis, stasis.How many times had Iseult’s mother made her stare in a mirror, forcing her to master her Threadwitch calm? How many times had Gretchya made Iseult observe her own face for every tic, every twitch, every failure to maintain smooth perfection? Iseult had hated it growing up. Now, though, in a room made of flames, she sank into the forgiveness of a cold, methodical lesson from the past.

She could master her face, and then true tranquility would follow.

“I could find no clothes,” she murmured at last, no stammer. No inflection. No more Aeduan to devour her senses. “I will try again tomorrow, when shops might be open.”

“I can get clothes…” A grunt of pain behind her. A savage exhale. Then, “At the Monastery outpost. I can get more clothes.”

“You still intend to go there?”

“I… must.”

Iseult swallowed a sigh, even as her reflection stayed still. She wanted to argue, but knew it to be pointless. This was not the first time she’d encountered behavior that contradicted a story told aloud. Aeduan claimed he disliked the Carawens, that he was not even part of their ranks anymore, yet he’d remained so scrupulous to their rules over the past two weeks of travel. He had meditated upon waking, he had kept his Carawen cloak fastened and clean, and he had regularly recited prayers at dusk.

Safi had been no different. She had always claimed to despise her uncle, yet she’d also gone out of her way to impress him. Finding reasons to show off her fighting prowess, dropping her latest history lessons into conversation, and twice even pulling heists while he watched on.