No. Han turned away from that one to see himself, in the upstairs room at the Turtle, holding the music box he’d given Rebecca. And now, there he was, very close, leaning down for a kiss, his eyes blue flecked with gold. It was a peculiar inside-out feeling to experience this from the other side.

Han swam in a sea of emotions—bone-deep guilt. A longing for home. An aching sense of loss that was not his own. Anger and betrayal and fear.

Now she was fighting back, fiercely, with what little strength she had left. But she was fighting him. She saw his presence as a threat, not a help. Maybe she didn’t want him finding out her secrets.

“Hey, now, save your strength,” he whispered. “I won’t intrude where I’m not wanted.”

So he turned his attention to the wound. Maybe there was a way he could detoxify the poison, or drive it out of her body. But he just didn’t know enough.

Well. If he couldn’t rid her of the poison, maybe he could keep it at bay, keep it from killing her before they reached Marisa Pines. And so he dug in, throwing up barricades between the poison and the life force in her.

Minutes passed, and the poison halted its spread. It stayed, quarantined in the flesh surrounding the wound.

It was not without a cost. Rebecca might be protected from the poison, but now he himself was vulnerable to it, despite his much larger body size. Soon he was reeling in the saddle, head pounding, chilled and nauseated. Ragger snorted and danced, wary of the muddled stranger on his back. If they’d come upon more assassins, there was no way Han could have mounted a defense.

He was a stranger in enemy territory, and instinct told him to hide his serpent amulet from view. He poked it under his shirt, out of sight, so it rested against his skin. He pulled out the lone hunter piece Dancer had made, and displayed it on the outside.

But he slid his hand under his shirt and kept hold of the flash that had once belonged to the Demon King.

Time passed. The shadows of the trees shortened, then lengthened again. The snow came, falling softly all around them, shrouding the hard edges of the world. Somehow, he drank the rest of his water. The last drops burned like flames down his throat. Hot was cold and cold was hot—an apparent side effect of the poison.

He kept one hand fastened on the serpent amulet, the other pressed Rebecca close. His amulet flamed and cooled in his hand. Power flowed from the amulet, through Han, into Rebecca. Where Han had been hot, and Rebecca cold, now it was reversed. She blazed against the frozen skin of his chest. Ragger chose his own way now, the reins slack over the pommel of the saddle.