“The city you humans call the Tomb,” Elariel said. “We call it”—she made a rolling, whistling sound he couldn’t hope to replicate, and went on—“which in your language translates to something like Refuge.”

The Tomb. Gyre looked around the windowless chamber. Refuge. The last city of the ghouls.

I made it.

“What happened to me?” He tried to sit up but couldn’t manage it, his right arm still restrained. “Where’s Kit?”

“Kitsraea is being tended to,” Elariel said. “As to what happened, the two of you jumped into a rock ingestor.”

“A … what?”

“A construct designed to reduce solid granite to rock slurry and deliver it to the city for use in construction.” There was a slight smile on her face, and her ears twitched. “Needless to say, you were injured in the attempt. It was a most unexpected move.”

“We were running low on options at the time,” Gyre said. “At least it worked.”

“We were forced to extract you before you reached the liquefaction pool,” Elariel said.

“Thanks,” Gyre muttered.

“No thanks are necessary,” she said. “Your digested remains would have ruined a perfectly good batch of building material.”

Now there was definitely a smile on the ghoul’s face. Gyre leaned back on the table, which was pleasantly spongy in texture.

“What’s wrong with my arm?” he said.

“It was broken in three places,” Elariel said, getting off her stool. “I fixed it in place to keep you from injuring yourself further. Do you feel any pain?”

“Not really,” Gyre said, propping himself up again on his other hand. He noticed for the first time that he was nearly naked, with no shirt and only a pair of short, loose trousers. Elariel, of course, wore no clothing at all, and Gyre wondered if that was normal for ghouls. “It just won’t move.”

He tried again and peered a little closer. His right arm was pressed tight against his side, and there was something strange—

His gorge suddenly rose. His arm wasn’t pressed against his side; it was fused to it, skin stretching unbroken from limb to torso. Plaguing fuck!

“Give me a moment.”

Elariel stood at his side, and her hands touched him, fingers running along the join. As Gyre watched, his skin split, painlessly, separating his arm from his body again. Bands of fresh pink were wound around his biceps and wrist, presumably where he’d been … repaired.

Dhaka. The life-magic of which the ghouls had been the foremost masters. For all that he’d come to the Tomb looking for their power, actually seeing it—feeling it used on his own flesh—roiled his stomach. There was no visible sign of the power, just Elariel running her fine-furred hands up and down Gyre’s body, pressing and testing. When she found a stray flap of skin, she touched it, and it retreated obediently. Gyre flexed his arm, and she nodded approval.