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“Not many people do, yet they haven’t chained me up like a dog.”

“I have my reasons. Magic or not, I know better than to underestimate you.”

All hells, was that a compliment? Orpheus forced a breath through his nose and sought out his wrists.

Atticus sighed. “Take that off and we’ll wash it.”

A hand dropped onto his shoulder, but Orpheus didn’t look up. His robes clung to him where they shouldn’t, weeks of sweat and dirt and body oils leaving the fabric feeling like an unshed skin. Strangely, the idea of being naked in front of Atticus didn’t unsettle him as it should have, but the idea of having his robes taken away did.

They were all he had left of his life before, because if Fenrir wasn’t—

No—no!

He couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t afford to. He was helping Sanctuary because it furthered his own ends, not because he’d given up on being saved.

Don’t lose hope, Fifi.

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. But just in case—wouldn’t it be smart if he—

All hells.

Orpheus yanked the robe up, ignored the way it peeled off him in places, the stench of himself that wafted when the fabric tugged loose over his head. Atticus helped him remove his makeshift cast before sweeping it all up and bundling it into a bag that he dropped through a chute in the wall Orpheus hadn’t even seen.

The sack made a slow sad sound when it disappeared into the wall, and the thought of whether he’d also fit down the shoot was immediately smothered when Orpheus turned back to the mirror and caught sight of himself.

He’d never considered himself a handsome man. Striking, yes. Memorable, of course. But his months with Fenrir had filled him out in ways living in the Gilded Palace’s dungeons never had. Winter had kept his skin pale but the stretch of time he’d spent at the Rawkner family farm had lent a warmth to his cheeks and a density to his muscles that had suited his lankly, thin frame. And those were only the visible changes. Joy brought a certain lightness to most men and Orpheus was no different. He’d been happy, for a while, and that had done more for him than any amount of sunlight could.

Now, all that was gone. Stripped down to a skeleton of the person he’d been during the height of Lore’s war, circles hollowed his eyes, his cheeks not much different, bruises he didn’t remember getting scattering his skin, his hair a lank fall of oily curls.

“We wash here, at the stools, then soak in the basin.” Beside him, Atticus had removed the rest of his own clothes and was busy scrubbing his scalp. “I’ll look at your leg once you’re clean.”

Orpheus eyed the faucet of his sink before carefully turning it on.

Water splashed over the edge of the basin to drip between his toes. Hot, steaming water that felt so good to touch that the fact he was bathing with his enemy went entirely ignored.

He washed himself with a desperate fervor. Then did it again. And again. Until the water ran clear and his skin became smooth and Atticus stole the brush from his hand with a dismissive sound.

“As nice as this is, I assure you the bath is better.”

Orpheus watched Atticus climb into the water from the safety of his stool and considered the likelihood of Atticus agreeing to drown him.

Even twenty years his senior, Atticus was not an old man. He wore his age better than well, the clean white wave of his hair the only hint that he’d reached his senior years. Age had yet to bow his back or eat at his muscles, and as he slid beneath the water, there was a grace to the way he swam that suggested he did it often. It made Orpheus wonder about the parts of Sanctuary he hadn’t seen. The library Gwen mentioned, and all the homes filling its canal-carved streets.

He limped to the basin’s edge and dipped one toe in, keeping his eyes on the dark water rather than where Atticus lounged some dozen feet away.

The water was warm, almost hot, the perfect temperature to soak in. Well, when in Rome, someone far wiser than him once advised.

Orpheus climbed carefully in, then promptly sighed.

“The Myrkur outdid themselves when they built this, wouldn’t you agree?” The statement hung like a piece of bait, and Orpheus, the starving man he was, could not resist.

“The Myrkur built this?”

“They built all of Sanctuary, I’ve been told.”

“Told,” Orpheus repeated. “Duluth doesn’t speak.”

“And Daedra hardly stops.” Atticus rolled his head onto a shoulder and sank deeper into the water, Rim-pale eyes following Orpheus as he crossed to the opposite side of the basin and found the little curved ledge of a seat. “This was an ancestral home of theirs, long abandoned before our forefathers summoned it up from Hell.”