wanted to consume my soul. Since I’d encountered him, he’d kept me safe.
As I sheathed my blade, pain shot up my arm, and I winced. The heat of the fire was thawing the stump of my finger, which meant I felt the pain again.
You’re still hurt, he wrote.
I looked down at the remains of my ring finger. I felt nauseated every time I looked at it. “Yeah. It’s not ideal.”
Marroc stood, towering over me, and beckoned me to the door at the end of the hall.
I slipped Skalei into my coat pocket, then followed him into a long hallway of dark wood. We crossed into a room with a large marble table in the center, and I let out a low whistle. I’d read about places like this. Kitchens, they’d been called.
I draped my coat over a chair, making myself comfortable.
Back before Ragnarok, when humans had ruled Midgard, they’d devised extraordinary technology that didn’t require magic: stoves that heated without fire, insulated cabinets that kept food from rotting, even machines whose sole purpose was to prepare cold drinks. It had always sounded like paradise to me.
And it seemed Marroc, as a former human, had lived in the most luxurious conditions. I wanted to ask him everything about Midgard before the floods and war, about how the humans had once lived. But his lack of speech made that hard.
I was holding my hand at the wrist, as though the pressure would somehow make my finger regenerate. If anything could take my mind off trauma, it was this.
On a counter, I spotted one of these human devices—a sort of plastic vase with blades on the bottom that rotated. I hopped up to get a closer look, hoping to push all the disturbing thoughts about undead and severed fingers out of my mind. “I’ve read about these. Is this a blen-door? Gods, Barthol would love this. It crushes up fruit, doesn’t it? Mashes it up to make a delicious drink. A smoothie. How did you happen across these ancient human contraptions?”
Marroc nodded, that amusement dancing in his eyes again. He slid a piece of paper across the table and wrote, Wait here, I’ll be right back.
While he was gone, I explored the room, trying to put my mutilated hand out of my mind. I opened the drawers, poked around in the cabinets. I turned on the stove. Just like in the old books, the coils glowed red without fire when I twisted a knob.
When I turned around, I found Marroc writing on the paper, and he handed it to me. We need to take care of that finger.
Then he opened a small red bag labeled with a white cross, which I recognized as a medical kit. He unzipped it and removed a syringe along with a clear vial labeled LIDOCAINE.
“Oh, human medicine! I love human medicine.” It was what they’d used to heal themselves instead of magic, but most of it had disappeared long ago.
He nodded, then wrote, This will hurt. But it will help you heal.
For some reason, I trusted him. Undead or not, he’d clearly been looking out for me so far. It was like something was whispering in the back of my mind that he’d keep me safe, that we had to look out for each other. Although I couldn’t explain that at all, given what he was.
Reluctantly, I extended my injured hand to him.
I held my breath as he slowly drew a small quantity of fluid into the syringe, then grabbed the wrist of my injured hand. Before I could say anything, he drove the end of the syringe into the stump of my severed finger.
Something cold and painful slid up my arm, and I clenched my jaw, trying not to scream. I didn’t like seeming weak in front of others.
At last, he released my wrist, and I let out a long, slow breath. He snatched the paper and began scribbling on it.
When he flipped the paper around, I read: The medicine takes the pain away. When your finger is numb, I will stitch the wound shut. From now on, you must understand I am trying to help you. If I wanted you dead, I would have let Gorm throw you down the well.
“Good.” I cradled my numbing hand. “And I want to know why you’re so interested in me.”
Chapter 16
Marroc
I stared at her, heat flickering in my chest again. Barthol would love this, she had said.
I found myself wondering who he was. My new rival, perhaps? An icy