Page 92 of Demon Touched

I shake my head. That doesn’t make me feel better. “Why do we need his blood?”

“Inversion of the ritual, remember?” Viz says. “I mean, the runes still go on you, but that’s because you’re the host.”

I hadn’t considered that part either, but it makes sense. I nod. “Okay,” I say, mentally preparing for the bitch of a rash I’m about to get.

Syrus offers Viz his forearm, and Viz carefully places a bowl beneath it before slicing a small, shallow cut into Syrus’s flesh. I wince, but Syrus seems unmoved beyond a slight tensing in his jaw.

He tilts his arm, letting gravity help with the flow of blood into the bowl. When Viz is convinced he has enough, he hands Syrus a cloth which he presses to his arm for a minute or two as Viz fetches something else from his bag.

When Syrus lifts the cloth, the cut has already stopped bleeding, now just a red line of flesh starting to knit back together.

I gape at it. “You’re already healing?”

“Yes, I heal fast even for a demon. Another gift from Ajax,” he says, as if he’s surprised I didn’t know this already.

Viz dips a brush into the blood, consulting his scroll of runes. “Right, this is the complicated bit. Syrus, I’m going to need you to possess Leah while I paint these on.”

The familiar prickle runs up my neck, and with it comes a sudden, crippling pain at the awareness that this will be the last time.

But this is what I asked for, isn’t it? This is how it has to be.

I try to savor it as Syrus settles into my mind—the familiar weight of his presence, the way my body reacts to him, opening up as my nerves tingle under the ghost of his touch.

Viz makes me roll up my sleeves and starts marking out the runes.

“If there was anything you didn’t want to say out loud to me, now would be the time,” Syrus murmurs. His consciousness brushes up against multiple places in my mind, as if he too is mapping me, trying to commit this moment to memory.

He sounds half-joking, but he has a point. Still, I glance away and back again, unable to think of anything. Every possible word would just open up a door that should probably stay closed.

“All right, I’ll go then,” he says to my silence, crimson eyes never leaving my face. “I should’ve understood that what I did in Infernum would be impossible for you of all people to bear. I knew you better than that, and it shouldn’t have taken me so long to see it. I regret it.”

I exhale shakily. All these weeks I’ve been waiting for that acknowledgment, and he gives it to me now? He always had terrible timing. Nevertheless, something releases inside me.

“I wish you could tell me why,” I say, without anger or accusation. We’ve been over this too many times for that. Now I’m just sad.

“Me too,” he says, the sadness weighing on his words as well. “Maybe one day. When you aren’t…” He glances around at our surroundings, as if that says something in itself. “When things are safer,” he finishes.

One day. As if this isn’t the end of things. Could he see a future where I’m ephilium and he’s a demon lord and we still find each other? It’s like a daydream—too fragile to speak even into our minds.

“The blood doesn’t seem to be bothering you,” Syrus says, and I nearly move in surprise, almost ruining Viz’s handiwork. Luckily, I remember at the last moment to stay still.

“You’re right,” I say, staring at my skin in astonishment. There’s no hint of red or itchiness. “I must not be allergic to your blood. Maybe because of the bond?”

He nods once. As Viz finishes painting a rune on my wrist, the realization hangs between us.

We’ve been entwined together so closely for so long now, and yet it’s still not enough. There’s so much we still have to discover about each other. It’s a different kind of loss than what I was anticipating. Why did we waste so much time?

“Maybe when the bond is broken, it will start irritating you again,” he says.

“I thought the whole point of breaking the bond was so you stop irritating me?” I reply, because it’s right there, and because reaching for a joke feels like yanking on the reins of a runaway horse—stopping dangerous emotions galloping out of control.

Syrus huffs out some laughter, and Viz looks between us. “That’s the last rune,” he says.

I look down at my arms. “You don’t have to paint them on all of me?” I ask.

“No, the sorcerers were overzealous,” Viz says, like he’s disapproving of poor craftmanship.

“So what’s left for us to do?” I ask.