Definitely unsettling. In Vesria’s ruthless court, she supposed it was useful to maintain a mental dossier on every person he met. “I get it. You’re a perfect soldier and a perfect politician, even dying. Am I supposed to be impressed? Threatened?”

“I’m only making conversation. I’m … admittedly out of practice.”

Clearly. If this was his idea of friendly repartee, she doubted she would escape this place with her sanity intact. Goddess, grant me patience. As she affixed a vial to a syringe, she reminded herself how sweet it would be to deliver him to the queen.

“My face doesn’t change that much,” she muttered to herself. Then, to Hal, “Give me your arm.”

He reluctantly obliged. She took hold of his wrist—and a current like electricity tore through her hand. They both flinched away from each other, but a warm sensation still crackled like fire in the space between them.

Hal’s eyes locked on hers. “What was that?”

She heard the unspoken accusation in his question: What did you do? Wren threw up her hands. “Nothing.”

“It felt like something.”

Oh, it was something, alright. Healers rarely worked on the same patient for prolonged periods of time, lest this happen. But his tone rankled her too much to answer him straight. “Another astounding observation, Cavendish. Is it really so awful?”

He cut her an exasperated look. “It’s uncomfortable, yes, to be so aware of you.”

Good, she wanted to say. Suffer with me.

It was uncomfortable. This constant awareness of his energy all around her, the faint pressure of his heartbeat thudding against her eardrums. And when she touched him, that horrible crawling sensation beneath her skin. She couldn’t wait to slice herself free of him. Only two weeks more.

Wren rested her hand on his forearm, shivering as her magic vibrated from within his body like a greeting. “The simplest way I can put it is that my magic is bound up in your cells, but it wants to come back to me. You’re part of me, and I’m part of you. Eventually, as you recover, your body will flush it out. It’s temporary—and completely unintentional, I might add. So if you would kindly stop glaring at me?”

His hostility gradually sagged into bitterness—then morphed into a stoic, pious sort of acceptance that annoyed her more than the alternatives. “I don’t like it.”

“I’m terribly sorry about that, but there’s nothing I can do.”