Page 126 of Serpent and Shadow

I smacked him on the back, and he winced.

He winced enough that I could tell it had really hurt him. I realized in the same instant I’d hit him on the same side where his uniform had been bloody.

That got me to open my eyes, and to stare at that part of his skin.

A bruise was darkening and spreading on the whole right side of his chest. A jagged hole marked the center of the wound, obviously the source of at least a good amount of that blood. He watched me look at him, lying there unmoving, as if indulging me.

“Crossbow,” he said, when I didn’t speak.

He made a straight, arrow-like movement with his hand towards his chest.

“From a window. When we got down to that town you saw me near.”

My throat closed, but I only nodded, stroking the area of his skin near the outer edge of the darkening bruise.

“They weren’t much of a shot,” he added off-handedly. “They got the whole wrong side of my chest.” He indicated the left side of his upper torso, which was untouched apart from a few older scars, and a much lighter bruise that was almost gone.

“You mean your heart?” I asked, my voice taut. “You mean because they missed shooting you in the fucking heart… killing you… they must be a lousy shot?”

He shrugged, leaning his head back on his arm.

“Not many have gotten that close,” he allowed. “Not many likely well again. Not anytime soon, at least. Father dearest was right pissed off when he heard.” Bones turned his head, studying my eyes openly. “He killed two of my guards before we left.”

I bit my lip, feeling sick to my stomach.

I didn’t have a good answer, though.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing there?” he asked, his voice verging on cold again. “What I did to the people of that town? Don’t you want to know, Leda? What kind of wizard your husband is?”

I stared back at him, without lowering my eyes.

“I already know who you are,” I said, equally cold. “I don’t want to know what you were doing there, or who your father made you kill.”

His fingers tightened in my hair. He forced me to look at him.

“No,” he said, all feeling leeching out of his eyes. “You really don’t, Leda.”

I watched him wince as he bent down to pick up the black shirt from where we’d left it on the floor. He walked over to the area of the fire to toss it on the back of the leather couch until he could finish fastening the front of his trousers.

He’d taken a shower, padding naked into the lavatory without a word, and not emerging for another forty or so minutes. The whole time he was in there, I felt his magic pulling on me, coaxing mine, asking me to follow him. He hadn’t asked me though, and when I ventured a question towards his conscious mind, I got an immediate no.

I could feel him trying to close himself off to me again.

I fought not to think about that, or about what he’d said to me earlier. I couldn’t let myself wonder if he meant it, or if that had been the desperation of his magic talking, too. I couldn’t think about any of that yet.

Anyway, it didn’t matter now.

He was clearly leaving.

“You’re going back?” I asked, knowing the answer.

He didn’t look over. “Yes.”

“Did Malefic send you?” I asked, watching him fasten his belt. “To me, I mean?”

I’d been cataloguing the new scars on his back while he had it turned towards me, lit by the orange and red firelight. I’d already looked at the new gold tattoo in the center of his chest from the ritual Blackstone and I witnessed. When Bones turned to look at me, I saw his jaw tick when he saw where I’d been staring.

He slowly straightened, his shirt now gripped in his hand. He untangled it enough to shove an arm in one sleeve, then the other. He didn’t look at me as he shouldered it all the way on, his face unmoving.