Then he took her face in his hands. “Aria?” Her pupils were so dilated that he could hardly see the gray of her irises.

“I can’t see you, Perry,” she murmured.

“I’m right here. Right beside you.” He knelt by the bed and took her hand. If he held on tight enough, she’d be fine. She had to be. “You’re going to be all right.”

Roar appeared, setting a lamp on the bedside table. “Molly’s on her way. She’s getting what she needs.”

Perry stared at Aria’s arm. The veins around her Marking looked corded and deep purple. With every second that passed, her face grew paler. He ran a shaking hand over her forehead and thought of the medical facility at Marron’s. He had nothing here. Never in his life had he felt primitive until now.

“Perry,” she breathed.

He squeezed her hand. “Right here, Aria. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right—”

Her eyes drifted closed, and he was plunged deep underwater again, in the cold darkness, where there was no up. No air to draw into his lungs.

“She’s still breathing,” Roar said behind him. “I hear her. She’s just unconscious.”

Molly arrived, carrying a jar with a chalky white paste used for poison rashes.

“That won’t work,” Perry snapped. “It’s inside her skin.”

“I know,” Molly said calmly. “I hadn’t seen the wound yet.”

“What do we do? Should I cut the skin off?” The words had hardly left Perry when his stomach seized.

Roar’s hand came down to his knife. “I can do it, Perry.”

He looked at Roar, who was blinking fast, ashen, and couldn’t believe they were talking about cutting into Aria’s arm.

“That won’t help,” Molly said. “It’s already in her bloodstream.” She set another glass jar on the nightstand. Leeches cut swiftly through the water, agitated and eager. “These might, if they take to the spoiled blood.”

He fought off another wave of nausea. A belt around her arm. Leeches. Was this the best he could do for her? “Do it. Try them.”

Molly plucked a writhing leech from the jar and placed it over Aria’s Marking. When it latched onto her skin, Roar let out a loud exhale, but Perry still couldn’t breathe. Molly took another leech from the jar, and on it went, every second an eternity, until six leeches clung from Aria’s arm. On perfect skin he’d run his fingers across just hours ago.

Perry shifted his grip on her hand, threading their fingers together. Aria’s hand tightened, just a faint twitch before it relaxed again. Wherever she was in the unconscious, she was telling him she’d fight.