The house smells wrong the moment I push the door open, and the recognition settles into my chest before my eyes can confirm it. The familiar blend of dried herbs, woodsmoke, and damp wool lingers in the air, but something sharper cuts through it now, cleaner and edged with a metallic bite that reminds me of rain striking hot iron. The scent clings to the back of my throat and settles low in my lungs, stirring something instinctive and uneasy.
I shut the door behind me with measured care, listening to the quiet settle into place around the sound.
“Corin?”
For a fraction of a moment, nothing answers, and then his voice drifts down from above.
“I’m upstairs.”
My hand tightens around the latch before I release it slowly. He should not be upstairs without help, not after what I saw yesterday, not after the way his body failed him on the stairs like it had already decided to give up the fight. The thought pushes me forward, urgency tightening my stride as I take the steps two at a time.
My boots strike the wood hard enough to echo in the narrow stairwell, each step feeding the dread that coils tighter in my chest. I expect to find him worse, thinner, closer to slipping out of reach entirely.
Instead, I find him sitting upright in bed.
He is not propped awkwardly against pillows or braced against weakness. He sits straight, shoulders aligned, one leg bent loosely as though he chose the position rather than fought for it. Pale morning light filters through the thin curtain and spills across his chest, and the sight arrests me mid-step.
The black webbing is gone.
I cross the room before I realize I am moving, my hand already reaching for him. I shove his shirt aside with more force than necessary, my fingers searching for the branching corruption that should still be there. His skin is warm, smooth beneath my touch, unmarked except for the natural lines of muscle and bone.
No shadow.
No flicker.
No trace.
“Say something,” he mutters, watching me with a strange mix of amusement and concern.
I press my palm flat against his chest, directly over his heart. The rhythm beneath my hand is strong and steady, the beat full and certain in a way that sends a sharp, disorienting relief through me.
“That’s not possible,” I whisper.
“Funny,” he says, shifting slightly under my grip, “I was thinking the same thing about your face right now.”
I ignore the attempt at humor and lean in, pressing my ear to his chest. The sound fills me, each beat clean and powerful, not strained, not faltering. The strength of it feels wrong, notbecause it is weak, but because it is too perfect, too complete after everything that came before.
I straighten slowly and grip his wrist, counting the pulse beneath my fingers. The rhythm holds steady, unwavering.
Too steady.
“Corin,” I say, my voice quieter now, sharper with focus, “what did you do?”
He lets out a breath that borders on a laugh. “I slept. That’s about the extent of my heroic efforts.”
“This isn’t normal.”
“I gathered that much.”
I release his wrist and take a step back, trying to reconcile what I am seeing with what I know should be true. The contract hums faintly beneath my skin, a second awareness layered beneath my own pulse, and I cannot shake the feeling that it is somehow tied to what stands in front of me.
“You shouldn’t even be able to sit up,” I say.
“Well,” he replies, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, “let’s test that theory.”
“Corin—”
He stands before I can stop him.
