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“You’re going to . . .” He stopped himself and tried to match my calm. “Would you like me to . . . do that?”
“Not really.” I braced myself for the pain. “I will need you to stitch me after I do this. For now, put your hands here and pull the skin taut.”
I directed his hands to my bare skin. It was not how I wanted him to touch me the first time we were in my bedroom, but I couldn’t imagine trusting anyone else to be at my side for this. I loved my friends, but only Eli could be here. His strength. His willingness to let me control my fate. I asked a hard thing of him—I knew that. My job was to accept that very request: behead people’s loved ones. It was different when it was someoneyouloved, and while I didn’t think he loved me, he certainly had feelings.
I couldn’t say all of that. I simply said, “Thank you.”
Then I let my eyes slide toward grave sight, so I could see better. I had to find the edges of the poison so I could excise it like a cancer. I couldn’t carve away what I couldn’t see.
“Geneviève . . .?”
“I’m here. Need different vision.” I stared at my skin and the pulsing emerald under the surface.
It was wider than before. Something—whether the failed injection, my body, or the ice—had enclosed it a capsule. I could see it writhing, though. The venom was fleeing in little trickles.
“The venom they injected is more than even I can process. The shot in my arm might still change me. If this was injected carefully, I’d be—” I shook my head, stopping my own words, not wanting to think about the certain death I’d narrowly missed. If it was properly injected. If my friends hadn’t come. If they hadn’t thought to use ice. If this home surgery of mine didn’t work. . .
I had to cut it out.
I had to succeed.
Or Eli would have to behead me.
I let myself think about what to do next. I’d either give up or I’d be too late. I took a deep breath, and then I jabbed the knife into my skin. Despite best efforts, I made a noise. I might be okay with pain and have more experience with it than anyone should need, but I was not impervious to it.
In my anxiety over getting it done, the tip of the knife went in a bit further than I wanted. I wasn’t exactly skilled in self-surgery. I twisted the blade so it slid under the ball of venom that we’d effectively frozen. A whimper escaped my lips, and I felt more than saw Eli glance at me.
He didn’t speak.
I couldn’t speak.
Parting my lips would let out cries of pain, rage, and fear.
My hand wasn’t unsteady in a dangerous way yet, so I tried diligently not to think about the fact that this was my body I was stabbing. Okay, it was alittleunsteady. I gouged out a bit more flesh than maybe I needed—but I wasn’t sure I could stab myself twice.
I pulled the blade out, trying not to look at the blobby thing I’d cut out. It looked like a clutch of frozen frog eggs. My hand hovered in the air, not sure what exactly to do with the lump I’d carved out of my body.
Then I felt Eli’s hand on my wrist. “I am here, Geneviève. Let me stitch this.”
I let him take my knife, watched it drop onto a rag on the floor, and closed my eyes. I felt tears slip through my closed eyes as Eli cleaned blood away, stitched, cleaned, stitched. There was something soothing about it. I sucked at letting people take care of me most of the time, but over the last year, I’d let more than Jesse, Sera, and Christy in. I’d let Eli in.
“Still with me?”
“Thinking,” I said. I counted stitches, seven so far, and concentrated on the rhythmic tying together of my flesh. Another wipe, another stitch. The needle pierced my skin. I hated when he had to do this. I knew that Eli could manage steel in the way that true fae couldn’t, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant for him.
“Thinking about?” he prompted.
“You,” I admitted.
He paused for a flicker of a moment, but then he wiped my skin again and stitched again. “Oh?”
“I trust you.”
“Good . . .”
“No, I mean, Ireallytrust you. When I was hurt, my thought was that I needed you, and when I think about keeping my friends safe, I need you to protect them. And when I think about being put down—”
“’Put down?’ You are not a rabid animal, Geneviève.” Eli wiped again and looked at his work. “And I thought I was counted among your friends.”
