His fingers flexed slightly, a subtle warning. Tired, heavy footsteps came up from behind me.

“Can he feel pain?” Tori asked, stopping a step away. “Demons look so blank all the time, like puppets …”

Her solemn tone surprised me. Few people gave any thought to demons’ suffering.

“Yes.” I gently pressed on Zylas’s thumb joint. “They all feel pain, contracted or not.”

Tori stared at his injured hand, then gave herself a shake. “We need to go.” She brushed at the layer of grit clinging to her pants. “We have to get back to the Crow and Hammer.”

I reluctantly released Zylas’s hand. “We do?”

“You should come with me. We might need you.”

“Why?”

She glanced at the massive golem, lying on its face. “Because three combat guilds have been attacked in three days. That means the Crow and Hammer is probably next.”

She started across the parking lot and I trailed after her, an inferno of agony building in my elbow. Zylas walked after me, keeping his steps wooden and his tail still. My gaze trailed across the destruction—the guild building, its front wall smashed in, smoke billowing from the holes and fire flickering from the interior; crushed pavement and crumpled cars in the parking lots; unconscious, injured, or possibly deceased men lying in heaps; the fallen two-legged golem; the four-legged ones on their sides, still glowing with magic; the Odin’s Eye mythics, smudged with soot, their faces pale and furious.

Zora had described the previous two attacks, but I hadn’t imagined anything like this—and now that I’d seen the violence for myself, I could all too easily imagine the same fate befalling the Crow and Hammer.

Chapter Seven

I shut the door to the Arcana Atrium with my good hand and turned the bolt. As a shimmer of magic ran across the door, the muffled voices from the pub below went silent; the sorcery that sealed the room was so strong it blocked out noise as well as magic.

Downstairs, guild members crowded the pub. They’d all heard about the attacks on the Pandora Knights, SeaDevils, and now Odin’s Eye, and they’d gathered at their headquarters. I wasn’t sure if they were here to protect the guild or merely for moral support.

I double-checked that the door was locked. Okay, Zylas.

With a flash of crimson light, he appeared beside me. I nodded toward the center of the room.

“You can heal your hand now,” I told him. “No one will know you’re using magic in here.”

“Vayanin—”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not clumsy. I only fall down when—”

His hand curled around the back of my neck, and he pulled my face into his shoulder.

I squawked in surprise, a leather strap from his armor pressing into my cheek. “Let me g—”

His other hand closed over my arm, just above my elbow, and agony speared the joint. A pathetic sound scraped my throat as a wash of cold magic shivered through my limb.

“Your arm is damaged. The bones are in the wrong spot and the other parts … I do not know your words … Other parts are being pulled wrong.”

I turned my face sideways so I could breathe better, my glasses askew. “I’ll be fine. You should heal your han—”

He pushed me back and before I knew what he was doing, the zipper on my jacket was undone. Holding my shoulder, he slid the jacket down my arm. The leather hit the floor and he kicked it aside.

“Don’t do that,” I protested, my voice trembling and tears streaking my face. He’d been careful, but getting the sleeve off had jostled my elbow. “That’s brand new.”

“Quiet, vayanin.” He studied my fitted sweater. Wrapping one hand around my upper arm, he stretched the collar to his mouth and bit down. With the fabric between his teeth, he ripped the seam open with his other hand.

“Zylas!” I gasped. “Don’t—”

Despite his efforts to stabilize my arm, the motion was too much. The room spun and my face smacked into his chest, my vision blurring. My glasses clattered to the floor.

He peeled my sweater off, leaving me in a tank top. I glanced at my arm—and he caught me as I slumped to the floor. My jacket had been hiding it, but elbows were not supposed to look like that. Not like that at all.

While I hyperventilated, he calmly studied the joint. “I will straighten it first. I did this for your fingers, na? It will be fast.”

Reminding me about the time a Red Rum rogue had methodically dislocated half my fingers wasn’t helping my lightheadedness. “Okay.”

A long pause. “Does it hurt too much?”

“I can handle it,” I whispered faintly.

He tightened his hold on my waist. “I know vīsh … It makes pain less, but I have never used it on a hh’ainun.”

I almost said I was fine, but the injury was excruciating and the healing would only make it worse. “Try the spell on me, please.”

His warm palm pressed against my cheek. “I will use only small vīsh first.”

I nodded against his hand. Magic tingled through my face, then flashed hot. The warmth rushed outward, filling my body—and the pain evaporated.

“Oh,” I breathed. “This is good. I feel good.”

I tilted my head back and smiled. Something rather like alarm flickered over his features.

“Vayanin?”

“You’re mean to call me that. Can’t you say something nice? Or you could use my name. I like my name. It’s a good name. My mom called me little bird, because robins are birds and—”

“Can you stand?”

I pushed off him, swaying dramatically. “Of course I can stand. I feel good now. I’m fine. I don’t think I’m even hurt, but you—oh, your hand is hurt, I remember—”

As I babbled, he grasped my upper arm and my wrist with each hand.

“—so you should take care of your injury because I’m fine, really, and—”

He pulled sharply on my forearm. A dull pop sounded and a disturbing twang ran all the way up to my shoulder.

“Oh.” I blinked at my arm. “You fixed it. So I’m fine now, right?”

“You are not fine,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Even that little vīsh made you zh’ūltis.”