"Did they apple-core you, too?" I asked, worried about him having big holes in his pieces.

"'Apple-core'?" he asked, sounding confused.

"Um, you know. For the blood magic poison stuff. They took a big cylinder of, erm, meat? Out of my leg."

He stilled, his pulse visible in his neck, though he didn't open his eyes, nor did the careful pace of his breathing change. "But you're alright," Dain said, with the tone of someone reassuring himself. "They let you out, so you must be alright."

"Yeah, I'm alright," I said soothingly. "It was very gross and very freaky, but I'm all the way okay."

Dain nodded, a tiny movement. "I'm immune to that kind of poison," he said. "I... didn't even notice it. Fuck." His jaw clenched, ears pinning back. "You could have died," he said, the words coming out in a harsh whisper. "You—"

The rest of his sentence was cut off with a sharp cough that left him pale and drawn with pain, his hands and wing-hands trembling.

"It's okay," I said, scooting closer to him. "I'm not dead. You saved my life. Everything's good."

He cracked one eye for a moment, then closed it and made a face. "Everything's not good," he said in a dull voice. "Someone was willing to accrue blood debt to kill us. There's someone out there who mixed their blood with that of the dead to make sure we'd die, and who's walking around with dead flesh for it." Dain exhaled through his nose. "I've never told anyone else that it doesn't affect me. Last time I pretended to be dying for weeks."

"Gross and freaky, like I said," I replied after a moment, deciding not to think about it too hard. "For now let's just be here, okay? How's right now?"

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards towards a smile. "Right now isn't my favorite, either. Hurts more now that the adrenaline is gone."

"We can make it better," I promised. "Luckily for you, I've got narcotics that I'm going to bully you into consuming. Someone found the good stuff for you." I reached over and brushed some of his gray hair out of his face. He'd cut it short about a month ago, much to my sorrow, but it grew fast, and had already gotten long enough to be fun to play with again. "I'm not taking 'no' for an answer."

"I'd rather be able to fight, if it comes to it." He answered without so much as opening his eyes, but he lifted his ear to press against my fingers as I moved his hair.

I obliged, starting to give him an ear-rub, and watched some of the tension ease out of his face. "Since you're already not capable of fighting, I don't see why you can't be stoned."

Dain opened his eyes halfway and smiled at me, something halfway to a smirk. "You don't know what I'm capable of."