"Meaning you can also be killed?"
"We are not immortal, Risa. If death is our fate, it will find us—whatever the form."
"But you’re more vulnerable in flesh form?" The blood pouring down his arm dripped from our twined fingers—an indication of just how serious the wound was even if he didn’t appear to be worrying. Hell, did reapers even feel pain?
"Yes," he said softly. "We are not Aedh. We live and love and hurt."
"So why the hell are we just standing here? Let’s zap ourselves away."
"The bullet is silver. With it still in my flesh, I am prevented from doing anything more than short jumps into the gray fields."
"Then let’s get the fucking thing out." I hesitated, and frowned. "Wait—they used silver?"
That didn’t make sense. The Razan had aimed for my head, but the Raziq needed me alive. But it also meant that Azriel had saved my life by stepping in front of me and taking the bullet.
"I suspect the bullet was meant for me all along," he said. "The Raziq would have felt my presence the first time I rescued you. They’d know I’d do so again should you be captured a second time. By shooting me with silver, they are giving themselves extra time to find us."
"Then let me shift the two of us so we can get the hell out of here." The only problem was, I’d only ever shifted to Aedh form with another person in my arms once, and only then because we’d had no other option. But I knew Tao almost as well as I knew myself, and I’d been lucky. I suspected that would not be the case with Azriel. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could reassemble the damn book after a shift.
"Which is why we cannot take that option," he said softly. "We cannot risk the book, and you cannot disassemble or reassemble me as you did Tao. I am an energy being, and my makeup is unlike anything you could ever imagine."
And yet, here he was, bleeding like a regular person. "Then let’s damn well run! Anything is better than standing here."
He ignored my outburst, his expression as calm as ever. "You cannot go home. That is the first place they will look."
"Then where will we go?"
"Not we. You."