I fell asleep again before Shiny could resurrect and tell me what the Lights had done to him.
Later. Still night, but deeper into it.
I opened my eyes as brightness flared against them. I glanced over to see Shiny. He lay on the cot, curled on his side, still shimmering from his return to life.
I tried moving and found that I had more energy. My arm was still very sore, and thickly bandaged now, but I could move it. The straps were back in place and cinched tight across my chest and hips and legs, but the other wrist’s cuff had been left loose. I easily slipped my hand free.
Shiny’s doing? Then he had agreed to my bargain.
I unbuckled myself and sat up slowly, cautiously. There was an instant of dizziness and nausea, but it passed before I could fall on my face. I sat where I was on the edge of the bed, taking deep breaths, becoming reacquainted with my body. Feet. Shaky legs. Diaper around my hips, thankfully clean. Slouched back. Sore neck. I lifted my head and it did not spin. With great care, I got to my feet.
The three steps from my cot to Shiny’s exhausted me. I sat down on the floor beside the cot, leaning my head on his legs. He didn’t stir, but his breath tickled my fingers when I examined his face. His brow was furrowed, even in sleep. There were new lines on his face, around his sunken eyes. Not dead, but something had taken its toll on him. He usually woke as soon as he came back to life. Very strange.
As I took my hand away, it brushed against the cloth of his smock. Cooled wetness startled me. I touched, explored, and realized there was a wide patch of half-dried blood all down the lower half of his torso. Pulling up his shirt, I explored his belly. No wound now, but there had been a terrible one before.
He stirred while I was touching him, his glow fading rapidly. I saw him open his eyes and frown at me. Then he sighed and sat up beside me. We sat together, quiet, for a while.
“I have an idea,” I said. “To escape. Tell me if you think it will work.” I told him, and he listened.
“No,” he said.
I smiled. “No, it won’t work? Or no, you’d rather kill me on purpose than by accident?”
He stood up abruptly and walked away from me. I could see only a hazy outline of him as he went to the windows and stood there. His hands were clenched into fists, his shoulders high and tense.
“No,” he said. “I doubt it will work. But even if it does…” A shudder passed through him, and then I understood.
My anger roiled again, though I laughed. “Oh, I see. I’d forgotten that day in the park. When you started this whole mess by attacking Previt Rimarn.” I clenched my fists on my thighs, ignoring the twinge from the injured arm. “I remember the look on your face as you did it. That whole time I was in danger, scared out of my mind for you, but you were enjoying the chance to wield a bit of your old power.”
He did not reply, but I was certain. I had seen his smile that day.
“It must be so hard for you, Shiny. Getting to be your old self again for so brief a time. Then it diminishes until there’s nothing left of you but… this.” I gestured toward his fading back, letting my disgust show. I didn’t care what he thought of me anymore. I certainly didn’t think much of him. “Bad enough you get a taste of it every morning, isn’t it? Maybe it would be easier if you didn’t have that little reminder of all you used to be.”
He held rigid for a moment, his sullenness racheting toward anger in the usual pattern. Always predictable, he was. So satisfying.
And then, all at once, his shoulders slumped. “Yes,” he said.
I blinked, thrown. That made me angrier. So I said, “You’re a coward. You’re afraid that it will work, but afterward it’ll be like the last time—you’ll be weaker than ever, unable even to defend yourself. Useless.”
Again that inexplicable yielding. “Yes,” he whispered.
I ground my teeth in thwarted rage. It gave me momentary strength to rise and glare at his back. I did not want his capitulation. I wanted… I did not know. But not this.
“Look at me!” I snarled.
He turned. “Madding,” he said softly.
“What about him?”
He said nothing. I made a fist, welcoming the flash of pain as my nails cut my palm. “What, damn you?”
Infuriating silence.
If I’d had the strength, I would’ve thrown something. As it was, I had only words, so I made them count. “Let’s talk about Madding, then, why don’t we? Madding, your son, who died on the floor, killed by mortals who then ripped out his heart and ate it. Madding, who still loved you in spite of everything—”
“Be silent,” he snapped.
“Or what, Bright Lord? Will you try to kill me again?” I laughed so hard that it winded me, and I had to gasp out the next words. “Do you think… I care… if I die anymore?” At that I had to stop. I sat down heavily, trying not to cry and hoping for the dizziness to pass. Thankfully, but slowly, it did.
“Useless,” Shiny said. It was so soft, nearly a whisper, that I barely heard it over my own panting. “Yes. I tried to summon the power. I fought for him, and not myself. But the magic would not come.”
I frowned, the back of my anger breaking. I felt nothing in its wake. We sat for a long while as the silence stretched on, and the last of his glow faded to nothingness.
Finally I sighed and lay back on Shiny’s cot, my eyes closed. “Madding wasn’t mortal,” I said. “That’s why your power didn’t work for him.”
“Yes,” he said. He had control of himself again, his tone emotionless, his diction clipped. “I understand that now. Your plan is still a foolish risk.”
“Maybe so,” I breathed, drifting toward sleep. “But it’s not like you can stop me, so you might as well help.”
He came to the bed and stood over me for so long that I did fall asleep. He could’ve killed me then. Smother me, hit me, strangle me with his bare hands; he had a whole menu of options.
Instead he picked me up. The movement woke me, though only halfway. I floated in his arms, dreamlike. It felt like it took much longer for him to carry me to my cot than it should have. He was very warm.
He laid me down and strapped me back in, leaving the wrist cuff loose so that I could free myself.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
I roused at the sound of his voice. “No. They might start taking my blood again. We should go now.”
“You need to be stronger.” Unspoken, the fact that I would be unable to count on his strength. “And my power won’t come at night. Not even to protect you.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid. “Right.”
“Afternoon would be best. The sun will be unobstructed by the Tree then; that may provide some small advantage. I’ll do what I can to convince them not to take more of your blood before that.”
I reached up to touch his face, then trailed my hand down to his shirt and the stiff spot there. “You died again tonight.”
“I have died many times in recent days. Dateh is most fascinated by my ability to resurrect.”
I frowned. “What…” But, no, I could imagine all too easily what Dateh had done to him. Searching my hazy memories of the days since Madding’s death, I realized this was not the first time Shiny had returned to the room dead, dying, or covered in gore. No wonder there had been no reaction from our captors when I’d blown a hole in him myself.
There were so many things I wanted to think about. So many questions unanswered. How had I killed Shiny? I had had no paint that time, not even charcoal. Were Paitya and the others still alive? (Madding, my Madding. No, not him, I could not think about him.) If my plan succeeded, I would try to get to Nemmer, the goddess of stealth. She would help us.