skin. I watch her for a second more and then get up and walk to the other side of my cage.
“Thank you for letting us use this,” I tell Toreon, holding out his obsidian weapon, feeling hurried to return something that I’m sure is precious to him.
He looks as apathetic as ever, but his eyes swirl with molten interest. I have a sudden desire to crack him open like an egg, just so I can see what’s going on in that head of his, but I try to push it aside. What he’s thinking is none of my business.
As I hand it over, he plucks it from my grasp, but then he looks down at it with a frown.
“Oh, sorry,” I say quickly, realizing I didn’t wipe it off. “I kind of bled on it a little, it might be a little sticky.” I cringe, wondering if he’s going to be irritated at the less than pristine condition.
I look around my cell for something he can use to wipe it off, and pick up a piece of my shredded tattered blanket. “You can use this to wipe it?” I offer, but he doesn’t look up at me. Instead, he keeps staring at the tool. A barely-there noise escapes him, and I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been so intent on him. His golden gaze is fixed on his hand like he’s witnessing something that he doesn’t know how to comprehend.
Sheesh, it’s just a little blood. He could always go run it under his own barely dripping sink and wash it off, but the guy just stares at it. I try to dismiss it, but then I remember my reaction when I thought I was going to have to drink Medley’s blood, and I guess I can’t really blame him for being icked out.
“Here,” I tell him, wriggling the blanket in front of him.
“It’s fine,” Toreon finally says, his voice just above a whisper.
With a shrug, I toss the blanket on the floor behind me as he slips the weapon in the pocket of his ripped up pants, and then he looks down at his hand again.
I watch, confused by his reaction. He doesn’t look grossed out so much as shocked. He presses back into the corner of the shadows, shrouding any more of his strange reactions, and I hear him take several deep breaths like he’s trying to calm himself.
“Thank you again,” I offer as I make my way back and slip behind the stone wall of my tiny enclosure where my toilet and sink is. I do my business and try to clean up a little, but the trickles coming from the spout aren’t very effective.
Coming back out, I head over to Medley and sit next to her, in hopes that my body heat will help warm her a little until she can get up and move around again. Not that I’m exactly warm myself since I’m still mostly naked, but I hope at least that my presence will keep her calm. I’d put the blanket on her, but the last time I offered, she refused it.
“It seems it worked.” Toreon’s disembodied voice floats over to me from the shadows he’s sitting in. I’m surprised by his comment and by the fact that he’s even talking at all.
I press back against the wall behind me, trying to get comfortable, and my wings help shield me from the cold of the stone behind me.
“Yeah, it definitely did something. If I don’t blink back into the wingless girl with black hair, then we’ll know for sure,” I joke, but I have no doubt that I’ll never see that version of myself again.
Good riddance.
That old Sable was lost and broken and human. But this new Sable? She’s whole and found. A powerful hybrid. Not a delusional patient. I never want to go back to that other part of me, that scared little girl, or that conflicted woman. I wish I could purge the memories of her altogether.
“You should get some rest,” Toreon says, drawing my eyes over to the direction of his cage. “There’s no telling when Morax will come back, and you need to keep up your strength.”
I nod as I slide down to the ground, not even bothering to go get the sad excuse for a blanket. My dark wings come around me, one of them acting like my very own cushion, and the other wrapping around me like a blanket, and I fall into a deep sleep with