“Come on out, Castle,” Ryder said gently. He knelt and held out his hand. “I’m still me.”
Castle’s bushy tail flicked. Percy meowed and licked his paw, content with Castle’s hesitation.
“Ry?” Christy’s voice called shakily through the trees. She quieted and cursed. “That’s his energy, I know it is.”
“It could be another necromancer.” Tyler sounded skeptical.
“It’s too… I don’t know how to explain it, but Christy’s right,” Donovan said. “It feels like him. Ryder, are you out here?”
Energy swelled and pulsed.
“Liam, wait!” Christy hissed.
Opal ruffled her feathers. Castle sank into the bushes.
The darkness rippled around Liam’s shape. Ryder knew his footsteps. He knew the beat of Liam’s heart, the quickness of each inhale and exhale. Ryder crept around a thick oak, under a knot of branches and stood at the tree line, looking out into the moonlit meadow.
Liam stopped abruptly. He stood a few feet away, illuminated by white light, handsome and brutal and unchanged. Ryder stared at him, restless in his own skin, tired and deadly and changed. A year could’ve gone by, and Ryder would’ve stayed there, with Liam looking at him like that, and Ryder looking back.
Christy, Donovan, and Tyler stood behind him. Tyler held his arm out, signaling for Christy and Donovan to stay where they were.
Opal shifted on Ryder’s shoulder. The purred chirp of a fox sounded by his ankles, followed by Percy’s rough meow.
“You feel different,” Liam said. His eyes trailed Ryder’s face, his chest, his legs.
“I’m still me,” Ryder offered. “Just more of me.”
Opal chirped at Liam and flew to a nearby branch.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
“From all the way over there?” Ryder tried to sound playful, but his voice shook and quieted on the end. He swallowed and shifted from boot to boot, playing with the buttons on his cloak. “What were you guys doing out here?”
“Protection spell,” Liam said. He took a step forward.
Ryder’s magic reached for him like flowers reach for sunlight. “For the circle?”
“For you. Against death, or a solid ending, or something…Tyler came up with it.”
“I unmake death,” Ryder said. “I don’t need protection from it.”
Liam’s jaw set tight. “Come into the light.”
Ryder stepped into the light. He looked down at himself. His reaver was still snug over his index finger on his right hand. His cloak was buttoned and smoothed, hood pulled up over the back of his head. Blood stained the shirt underneath, and crusted spots darkened a few places on his jeans. He watched Liam carefully and heard the hitch in Tyler’s breath when he came into view.
“Ryder…” Christy whispered, somewhere between shock and relief.
Ryder touched his throat where the thread had been. There was no mark, but he felt their eyes on it, like the wound was still there, gaping and terrible. It wasn’t. His flesh had stitched itself back together, and his organs had started working again, and his heart still beat.
Liam took another step. He was within reach, but Ryder didn’t know what was allowed and what wasn’t.
“What happens now?” Liam touched the top of Ryder’s hand with his fingertips. His thumb brushed the tip of the reaver. He tilted his head and pressed harder on Ryder’s knuckles, then grasped them tightly. A tender, confused expression knitted Liam’s brows together. “You’re warm.”
“I’m always warm,” Ryder mumbled. He flushed and glanced at the ground, suddenly bashful again, as if he hadn’t been in Liam’s lap the night before. “Fire witch, remember?”
“He kept his magic…” Christy slid the words quietly to Tyler. Christy shuffled around Ryder’s head, poking and prodding, until everything went quiet and Christy’s energy flared, startled and frightened and thick. “And an attachment,” she added.
Liam didn’t let go of Ryder’s hand.
“I would’ve stayed dead,” Ryder whispered. The thought got stuck in his throat, prickly and jagged. He swallowed around it, eyes and nose burning. “It was subconscious. I didn’t know I’d attached until I was back, coughing up my body weight in blood.”
Liam flinched. His tongue ring click-clacked the back of his teeth. “Did it hurt?”
Ryder nodded. “Like a bitch, yeah.”
Donovan sighed through his nose. Christy glanced around, from Tyler to Ryder and back again. Tyler’s gaze was glued to Ryder, narrowed and defensive.
Liam still didn’t let go of Ryder’s hand.
“Take me home,” Ryder whispered. He felt his eyelashes dampen and his throat turn to sandpaper. “I’m too fucking tired for this.”
“If you leave, I leave,” Liam said.
“No one’s leaving,” Tyler said.
Ryder closed his eyes. His magic bristled, but he hadn’t lied, he was too tired to be angry.
Liam shot a hard look over his shoulder. “Ty—”
“We’re a circle,” Tyler interrupted. “We’re still a circle. We’ll figure this out together. Agreed?”
Christy hesitated, but nodded. “Yeah.”
Donovan said, “Of course.”
“Yes,” Liam said.
Ryder let out a long breath. He glanced at Tyler and didn’t quite find an apology, but something close enough. “Take me home,” he repeated. His eyelids were heavy, and if he could’ve, he would’ve curled up at Liam’s feet and gone to sleep. “I still have blood in my mouth, and I need a shower, and I just…”
“Yeah,” Liam mumbled. He glanced over his shoulder again and nodded to the three behind him. None of them approached. It hurt, almost. But Ryder ignored it. “They’re just…”
“Scared, I know.”
“Thanks for the protection,” Ryder said. He eyed Christy and Donovan and Tyler. “Maybe Belial came to me, because you asked him to.”
“Doubtful,” Christy piped, but it was playful enough to put Ryder at ease. “We have exams in the morning, Liam. Set an alarm.”
Ryder turned when Liam tugged on his hand. “You don’t have to stay, Liam. You can just drop me off.”
Liam didn’t bother saying anything.
They got in the Subaru, Liam in the driver’s seat like always, Ryder with Percy in his lap and his foot propped up like always.
Chapter Eight
THE MORNING APPEARED in the form of sunlight beaming through the slots in the blinds. Ryder shifted on top of the comforter. Percy slept soundly on the floor next to the altar. The apartment was silent—the kind of silence that was broken apart by familiarity, which made it something else entirely. A tea kettle whistling. Bare feet against wood floors. A rustle of feathers. Car tires on wet asphalt outside. Ryder was alive. Alive.