She nodded.
A line drew between his brows. “I can’t say I understand why.”
“It . . .” But she wasn’t sure how to finish, how to put it into words. “It’s mine.”
He didn’t press her for further explanation. They stood frozen, gazes locked, neither knowing quite how to move.
Eammon broke away first, looking instead at his still-cluttered room. With a sigh, he bent to gather the fallen coverlet. “I’ll sleep at the base of the stairs. If you need—shit.”
He dropped the blanket, hand pressing hard against his stomach. Blood welled through the bandage, more green than crimson, dripping down the plane of pale, scarred skin.
Red strode forward, put her hands on his shoulders, pushed him to sit against the wall. “You’ve reopened the wound.”
“I’m aware.”
“Do you have more bandages?”
“Top drawer.”
She crossed the room to the desk and rummaged through the noted drawer, past shredded bits of paper and broken pens. “Bandages are more effective when they’re kept clean.”
“They’ve worked fine thus far.” Eammon shifted, cursed. “If you haven’t noticed, I get sliced up rather often.”
It reminded her of what Lyra said before. Eammon is used to bleeding. Her mouth firmed, and she dug through the mess with renewed determination.
Finally, she found them, buried beneath a scribble-covered notebook and a layer of pencil shavings. Fist full of gauze, Red came back over and crouched next to him, peeled away the sodden bandage as another curse hissed through Eammon’s teeth. Three deep strikes scored his skin, bisecting chest and stomach. Tiny green tendrils curled from the ragged edges, almost too fine to see, flecked with fragile leaves.
Her eyes flicked from the carnage to Eammon’s face, stricken with sudden worry. “It’s not shadow-rotted, is it?”
“Can’t be.” Eammon’s jaw clenched tight. “Too much Wilderwood in me to let in anything else.”
Too much Wilderwood, indeed. His height still hadn’t lessened from the magic he’d harnessed as the corridor collapsed. Barely an inch, but it felt portentous to Red, made nerves spark along the back of her neck.
There was a tiny scar on his cheek. One she hadn’t noticed before, too faint to see from afar. A thin white line across his cheekbone, the same place where he’d taken her cut that first day in the library.
A scar he’d gained for her.
Their closeness sparked her power, like it had before in the clearing, making Red sharply, painfully aware of every growing thing in the Keep below them, in the courtyard outside. Magic bloomed, arched toward her fingertips, as if the sight of his wound and the bond between them pulled it forward. “You have to let me try to fix it.”
Eammon leaned his head back against the wall. “Not a good idea.” His words were scaled back and stilted; he could force only so many up his throat. “Too much.”
Too much pain, and it had to go somewhere. Her bent hands hovered over his skin, conviction sharpening the edges of her voice. “I can do it.”
“Why?” Dark hair shadowed Eammon’s eyes, where she read everything he didn’t say. Why was she so determined to try healing him, when before the idea of using her power was met with such resistance?
Red wasn’t sure how to answer. The only thing she was sure of, when it came to Eammon, was that she wanted him safe. She cared. The caring was a complicated, layered thing, but that was the only kind of caring she knew.
“Because I have a vested interest in you not dying.” Then, somewhat softer, “And I owe you.”
Eammon’s eyes searched hers. Finally, he nodded, grimacing as he shifted against the wall, spelling out clipped instructions. “Focus your intention. Connect to the forest’s power in you. Touch the wound. Draw it in.” His mouth went suddenly fierce, brows drawn low, and when he spoke it was sure and strong. “Not all of it, Redarys. Promise me.”
She swallowed against a dry throat. Nodded. Then, fighting to keep her hands steady, she placed them against his skin.
Eammon was always warm, but this heat was fevered, sickly. His green-and-scarlet blood lined her fingers, pricked with leaves, and Red had to close her eyes to concentrate, to guard against the fear that mounted in her head at the sight of him hurt so badly.
But even the fear had its purpose. Something about it— something about it being for Eammon— made her power easier to wield, easier to shape. Her caring, magnified by their shared splinter of magic and the marriage they’d made, fashioned the chaotic power into something she could use.