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“Iscairn…” My voice is barely a thread. “You’re… guessing.”

“The creature who changed me did not explain it,” he says, his voice hardening as he forces himself upright. “I remember what it did, but not all of it. I was dying when it found me, and much of that night has been lost. I remember enough, Ophelia. I must remember enough.”

He draws a small blade from beneath his cloak and cuts across his palm, thick black blood welling over his fingers. As he closes his fist against his chest and mutters beneath his breath, brilliant blue light seeps through the wound, mingling with the blood until every drop glows with it.

“Open your mouth,” he says, bringing his hand towards me. “Please, Ophelia. I need you to drink.”

His torn palm presses against my lips, and something hot floods my mouth, so thick with blood that I gag before I can swallow. I try to turn away, but his hand catches my jaw, holding me steady as the foul, metallic taste fills my throat.

“Swallow, Ophelia. Please.”

I can't breathe.

My throat convulses, and I choke down the mouthful, feeling it burn all the way into my belly. I gasp for air, but he's already pressing his palm against my lips again, and I don't have the strength to fight him.

“I know,” he murmurs. “I am sorry. Just a little more.”

I swallow again, gagging as the blood slides down my throat, and when he finally draws his hand away, I can do little more than lie there with my mouth open, struggling for breath.

“Good,” he whispers. “Now the soul.”

Blue light gathers behind those impossible black eyes as he bends towards me, and I barely have time to wonder what he intends before his lips settle against mine in the softest of kisses.

Oh.

A brilliant rush of light pours into my mouth, so bright that I can see it shining through my closed eyelids. It has no taste, nothing I can swallow, yet it forces its way down my throat with the strength of a breath I haven't drawn, filling my chest with such bitter cold that I clutch desperately at Iscairn's cloak.

I try to gasp, but there's no room for air. The cold is everywhere, spreading beneath my ribs until my back arches from the stone, and when I grab at Iscairn's arm, the bones of my own fingers shine through the skin.

“No!” Gideon screams. “Get away from her!”

Then the pain comes.

It tears through the wound in my groin, and I cry out as the torn flesh begins to knit, drawing closed along the inside of my thigh with an agony that makes my whole body writhe. The cuts beneath my arms follow, the ragged edges pulling together as the corruption burns away.

Oh, Christ. It hurts.

Light spills across the crypt, illuminating the old stone arches as pale silver threads twist through the air around us. Gideon is still shouting, but his voice sounds strangely distant now, drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears.

Iscairn's hand tightens behind my head, holding me against his mouth as something deep inside my chest begins to change.

A peculiar pulling rises beneath my breastbone, like something’s caught hold of my heart, and then the cold suddenly turns to heat.

A blinding burst of blue and silver floods the chamber, sending a rush of air through the broken doorway that scatters loose stones across the floor. Iscairn screams against my mouth, his body convulsing over mine as the last of the light forces its way into my chest, and I scream with him, arching so sharply against the flagstones that my heels leave the ground.

Oh, God, make it stop.

The burning spreads through my ribs, down into my belly, and along every inch of my limbs, until not a single part of me is untouched. My hands claw uselessly at Iscairn's cloak, and I cannot tell whether he's holding me down or trying to keep himself from falling.

Then the pressure breaks, and my lungs fill.

Air rushes down my throat in one enormous, shuddering breath. I cough, gulp down another, and lie there panting against Iscairn's mouth, utterly bewildered by the absence of the wet rattle that has accompanied every breath for days.

I can breathe. Properly.

“Iscairn—”

He pulls away from me, his breathing harsh and uneven, and suddenly the whole world comes alive around us. The torches beyond the doorway crackle with astonishing clarity, and Gideon’s shouting is so sharp that I flinch at the sound. Even the rough linen of my shift is almost unbearable against my skin, while every little movement of Iscairn’s hair sends a strange, wonderful sensation across my cheek.