Significance didn’t seem especially worried, watching her curiously. She had the creeping, vile suspicion that to xem this was still part of the experiment. “No one’s coming for you,” xe said, as she bled on the floor. “What do you do now?”

Orfeus bared her teeth and yanked free another length of fabric. She wrapped this laboriously around her other arm. It took her longer than it should have, her fingers slow, clumsy. Please, all the gods, not her hands.

She lurched to her feet and staggered to the table. Significance tensed, ready to move. Xe could certainly move faster than she could. Orfeus slowed her movements, like she was more dazed than she really was. She pulled her cloak off the table and wrapped it around her shoulders, shivering.

“Sweet,” O’Hallow said, sounding amused. “You can keep the cloak if you want, but I would like you to sit back in the chair, please. Don’t make me force you.”

Orfeus couldn’t help but look at the other things on the table. Gleaming and nasty things, scalpels and needles.

“It won’t hurt,” Significance promised. Xe held up xyr hand, finger extending lazily in her direction. She couldn’t take another shock like that.

Orfeus picked up her metal knife and turned on xem with bare and gleaming blade.

Significance actually took a step back. “You’re a barbarian!” xe said, staring at it.

So horrified at this abandonment of morals, down here in xyr little torture science den. Orfeus grinned darkly. She could still taste blood in her mouth. Her grip was at least sure enough for a knife hilt. “You said it yourself,” she said. “We’re animals.”

She took a step forward, and Significance took a step back. Xe sniffed, like xe wasn’t bothered. “What do you expect to do to me with that?” xe said with a wave at the knife, voice rich with disdain.

Orfeus didn’t glance down at the knife. She already regretted needing to use it, such an ugly thing, but right now it was hard to regret anything. She didn’t look at the tied-down people in the row of chairs, either.

She prowled a slow step forward. O’Hallow took a step back. “I don’t care how many modifications you people make to live as long as you do,” Orfeus said. “I don’t even care what you learned to do to yourself with your own questionable research. I just know what I know.” She lifted the knife. “You’re Blooded. Yes. If I get enough blood out, you’ll die. That’s just how it is.”

Another wary, skittering step back, xyr eyes huge. It gave her a pang of nearly-guilt. Xe looked young. Xe wasn’t. “That’s true of you as well as me,” Significance said.