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Rowan crosses to the bed before I can block her. ‘Let me see.’

I remain close enough to tear her hands off if she causes one ounce of pain.

Lyra sees that too and rolls her eyes. ‘Try not to murder the helpful witch while I’m actively using her,’ she rasps.

Rowan places two fingers at Lyra’s throat. Pale light seeps under her skin, then flickers violet where Selphine’s broken work is still embedded. Lyra gasps, back arching slightly off the bed.

I snarl.

Rowan snaps, ‘If you distract me, she suffers longer.’

I go still through sheer violence of will.

Rowan examines her mouth, throat, pulse, the strange glow beneath the skin at the hollow where the gag has torn itself open. ‘The spell broke violently,’ Rowan says. ‘It did not unwind. There’s damage along the vocal channel, the blood signature and the veil. Your blood is helping, but she’s not healing fast enough.’

‘She will take more.’

Rowan nods. ‘She should take more. But carefully.’

I lean over Lyra. ‘Again.’

She looks at my wrist, then at me. ‘You keep bleeding on your own furniture.’

‘I have more furniture.’

‘You’re insufferable.’

‘And you are pale enough to end my tolerance for wit.’

That gets me a faint, ruined smile.

She drinks again. This time I control the flow and I feel the moment my blood enters her properly, feel it race towards the torn places where it meets the shredded remains of Selphine’s gag and recoil with violent instinct.

Mine.

The word comes from my blood, not my mind. Rowan looks sharply at me but I ignore her.

‘You were right,’ she says after several tense seconds. ‘The glamour was part of the structure. It masked physical resonance as well as scent. Subtle work. Years of it. The collapse is restoring suppressed markers.’

‘Markers,’ Lyra whispers.

‘Your face,’ Rowan says, blunt as a blade. ‘Your scent. The underlying blood resonance he would’ve recognised if Selphine had not wrapped you in so many lies.’

Lyra closes her eyes. A tear slides into her hair.

‘What else?’ I demand.

‘Scent. Appearance. Reflexive truth avoidance. The spell made lying feel safer and confession feel fatal because, eventually, confession became physically dangerous.’

My skin crawls. ‘So every time I avoided the truth⁠—’

‘The spell likely strengthened the habit,’ Rowan says.

My stomach twists, but I tighten my fingers around hers despite the anger moving through the bond, dark and focused.

Not at you.

I look at her, then gather her closer. Foolish, perhaps. Necessary, certainly. She does not resist. Her body folds against mine as if exhaustion has stolen pride’s armour.