He let go. I marched across the yard, picked up Slayer, and kept walking all the way into our room, where I barred the door.

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

Sometimes the simple pleasures in life are best. Like a hot shower after a sweaty, bloody fight. A dull, heavy numbness crept into my arms. Hugh hit like a battering ram. I would really pay for blocking him in the morning, but the pain had already started. I felt tender all over. With luck, I’d still be able to move tomorrow.

I stood under the water, trying not to think, and concentrated purely on shampooing my hair and then dragging a soapy sponge against my cuts. It hurt and I welcomed it.

Andrea once told me that I had a problem processing emotional pain. I couldn’t handle it, so I replaced it with physical pain instead: either I inflicted it on others or I suffered through it myself. Well, I had physical pain aplenty. If she was right, I should be floating on a cloud of bliss right about now.

Finally the water ran clear. I stepped out and looked at myself in the mirror. The gashes on my thigh and stomach had come open. Demet was really, really good at medmagic, but I was still human and now I was all cut up to hell. In the past, Doolittle had spent so much effort on healing me that some of my old scars had faded. Clearly, this created an imbalance and the Universe had decided to compensate.

Half a dozen shallow cuts crossed my arms and torso. Hugh’s handiwork. I shouldn’t have let him goad me. Voron always told me that he’d trained Hugh to fight, but also to command and plan. But he had trained me to kill. Hugh would be directing an army, leading it into battle, while I was a lonely assassin on the sidelines, cutting my way through the mass of people to my target. In a simple one-on-one sword fight, I had an edge.

Neither of us had used magic. I still didn’t know the full extent of his, and he still didn’t know much about mine. At least I hadn’t given myself away completely.

Someone had left bandages on the night table. Probably a gift from Doolittle. I bandaged the worst of it, sat on the chair very carefully—my thighs hurt—and slumped forward. My body hurt all over. I closed my eyes. It was just pain. It would pass. I just needed a minute. I still had three hours before my shift with Desandra started.

Someone knocked. I stared at the door, hoping to burn through it with my gaze and explode whoever was on the other side.

Knock-knock.

“Yes?”

“Can I please talk to you?”