Chapter 17 · The Fire Didn't Take

Torin's hand locked around my wrist before I got halfway turned.

"You're hurting me."

Lie. In three years he never left a mark. He handled me like furniture he wasn't sure he wanted to keep. He ran his thumb across my pulse, counted it, let go. Rain drummed the tin over our heads hard enough to drown the rot-smell of the shanty, and it still didn't drown him. Cold iron, and under that, blood.

"You've been fighting," I said.

"I've been looking."

"Same difference."

His jaw went tight. He didn't take the argument. He stepped in instead, until my shoulders found the wall without him pushing. Then he breathed in slow, right at the corner of my jaw.

I went still as a nail. The paste under my jaw, hermit's mix, bitter as tar, three fingers of it a day, was the only thing standing between him and the heat coming off my skin.

His head turned. Clay jar on the shelf, two-thirds gone.

"What's this."

"Fever bark."

"You don't have a fever."

His thumb caught my chin and tilted my face up. Not rough. Heavy. "You're dosing yourself. You'd rather poison your liver than let me near you.