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“No,” he says before I can finish. “Zev has worked incredibly hard to build his mental shields so he isn’t susceptible to that, not that I would ever try to influence him.”
I purse my lips, suddenly wanting to try my own influence on him just to see if Jagger is right.
“Bad idea, dove,” Jagger says, dragging a finger under my chin to draw my attention back to him. “Try it and Zev will ensure it’s the last thing you ever do.”
“That only makes me want to do it more,” I say, flashing him a wicked grin.
“Go,” he says, motioning behind me to where Sirius has already gone back into his private room. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
It’s as much as a threat as a promise, and I hurry into Sirius’s room before the drifters can change their mind and try and drag me out of here. The sooner I get my meds and feed, the better.
“Quest,” I hear Sirius call once the guard closes the door behind me. “Livana is here.”
Sirius’s assistant—a petite but fierce healer with hazel eyes and auburn hair hanging in curls over her shoulders—pops out of where she’d been lounging in an oversize armchair, a bright smile on her face.
She rushes across the room, arms open as she throws them around me. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, releasing me as she takes a step back, surveying me. “But then again, I suppose it’snevergood to see you.”
I laugh at the contradiction, understanding. Whenever I show up, it’s because I’ve gone too long without my meds,without them checking my condition, and it never bodes well. Still, I do enjoy her no-horseshit, carefree attitude, especially when she aims it at the all-too-serious, Sirius.
“On the table,” Sirius demands, and if he was anyone else, I would’ve thrown a seductive little jab right back at him. Something along the lines ofon all fours or on my back, how do you want me?
But he’s Sirius, my supplier, my savior in every sense of the word. He has my respect more than anyone, so I don’t fuck with him the way I do everyone else.
He found me half-dead near his tavern a decade ago, my heart ailment surfacing in a terrifying way that left me breathless, weak, and unable to even attempt to heal myself. Once he’d gotten me on his table, he’d used his inherit magic to stabilize me and look at my heart, explaining that I’d been born with this mutation in it, but it’d never been triggered before. Now that it surfaced, I’d have to deal with it all the time.
I climb on the table, a length of sturdy wood with a leather cushion atop it that hugs the back wall of his rooms, all of which are ornately decorated in his colors of maroon, blue, and gold. The room is cozy, with dim lighting and soft music playing from magically conjured areas around the space. To the left, opposite the lush furniture and bookcases, are shelves of various herbs, tonics, and trinkets, all with either a magical or holistic purpose, in a rainbow of colors and shapes.
“When was your last attack?” Sirius runs his fingers, which are ice-cold, along the edges of my neck as he studies my eyes, looking over me in that studious way that makes me feel more like an object than being.
“Night before last,” I answer. “I only had half a dose left.”
He flashes me a chiding look, one that makes me go from object to scorned youngling in a split second. “You’re smarterthan that, Livana,” he says, continuing his inspection of my body.
His fingers pause over my right hip, gently pressing the area. “Any pain here?”
I shake my head, relief washing over me as he continues to the other side, then back up toward the center of my chest. Quest brings him a tray of vials and herbs, assisting him effortlessly while flashing me comforting gazes.
Sirius flicks his fingers, sparks of gold swirling above the center of my chest as he weaves and works them into a circular design that hover above me. The light pulses in time with my heart before it crackles and reshapes itself into the very image of what lies beneath my flesh. The pumping muscle is outlined in gold, veins shimmering in color with each beat.
My spirit deflates. I’ve seen the image so many times I know there’s been no change, not that I ever had any hope there would be. Still, it would’ve been nice to garner some kind of win today.
Quest glances from the image to me, then gently touches my shoulder in silent comfort.
I take it. Savor it.
She’s pure kindness in a cruel, unforgiving world. If I was more selfish, I’d never leaveThe Garden of Flamejust to try and breathe life into the friendship she’s always so graciously offered. I could dance here, feed here, have access to my meds here. It would be a good, easy life, until I eventually slip and ruin it for everyone.
No, I wouldn’t do that to her, to Sirius, or to any of the creatures who find refuge here. Besides, the drifters forced my hand, gave me an opportunity I couldn’t refuse.
“Has it worsened?” I finally ask when Sirius has stared at the image of my heart for a few beats past comfortable.
He glances at Quest, a flash of concern in his blue-green eyes.
“Fuck,” I say. “How bad?”
“A branch has stemmed off of the faulty pathway,” he says, switching back to all-powerful sorcerer in an instant.
He points to the pathway illuminated in gold as my heart beats. He’s shown it to me several times before, the length of vein in my pumping muscle that shouldn’t be there. And now, a new, tiny branch stems off of it in another direction. The crackles of light flicker in time with the acceleration of my heartbeat, causing me to breathe deeply to try and soothe it.
