Theo’s voice exploded inside my skull like a thunderclap.
“SYLY!” I flinched so hard my forehead nearly cracked against the table.
Outside, beyond the barrier, I could hear him shouting the same word into the rain—as if telepathy alone wasn’t enough, as if he needed to tear his throat raw just to be certain I’d heard.
I groaned and buried my face deeper into the crook of my arms.
How many times?
How many times had I told him to stop calling me that ridiculous name?
Syly.
Like I was a child.
Like I was his pet.
And why was he always shouting?
One call.
That was all it took.
One quiet brush against my mind and I would have opened the barrier.
I always did.
I had never once ignored him.
“SYLY!” “There is absolutely no reason for you to be this loud,” I replied, keeping my mental voice flat.
Measured.
The kind of tone that should make him pause.
“I’m coming.” It didn’t.
Of course it didn’t.
I pushed myself up from the desk, my joints popping in protest.
The room was warm—the hearth having burned through most of the wood I’d stacked that morning—and the air smelled of old parchment and dried herbs.
I left it behind and stepped into the rain.
The moment I opened the barrier I froze.
Theo stood at the edge of the clearing, his small frame nearly buckling beneath the weight of the man in his arms.
At some point he had shifted—his true form, the small five-year-old with too-big eyes, was gone.
In its place stood a broad-shouldered adult, muscles straining against the limits of his borrowed body.
Even so, he was struggling.
The man he carried was enormous.
Easily three times Theo’s size, clad in armor so dark it seemed to drink the light.
Theo’s arms trembled.
His legs shook.
Every step left a deep imprint in the mud, and I could see the whites of his knuckles as he clung to the stranger’s limp body.
I stared.
The rain plastered my hair to my face.
Water dripped into my eyes.
“What,” I said slowly, “exactly am I looking at?” Theo didn’t answer.
Maybe he couldn’t.
His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
He stumbled forward, lurching past me through the barrier’s opening, and the moment he crossed the threshold his legs gave out.
I caught him before he could drop the man entirely.
The stranger’s weight hit me like a falling tree.
My knees buckled.
My spine screamed.
Together, Theo and I dragged—no, heaved—him across the threshold, and the barrier sealed itself behind us with a faint, shimmering hum.
“Inside,” I gasped.
“Now.” — We laid him on my bed.
The one I slept in every night.
Now it was soaked in blood within seconds.
I straightened and finally got a proper look at him.
My stomach turned.
Blood.
Gods, so much blood.
It soaked through his armor, pooled in the creases of his gauntlets, streaked down his neck in dark rivulets that had long since dried to rust.
His face was pale—too pale, the kind of pale that belonged to corpses—and his lips had taken on a faint, sickly blue.
But it wasn’t the blood that made my gorge rise.
It was the smell.
Demonic energy clung to him like smoke from a doused fire.
Thick.
Cloying.
It rolled off his wounds in waves that made my eyes water and my throat close up.
The corruption was so dense I could almost see it—a dark, oily shimmer that coiled around his limbs and seeped into the sheets beneath him.
For one horrifying moment, I genuinely thought Theo had brought a demon into my house.
Then I looked closer.
The man’s face was human.
His hands, splayed limp at his sides, bore no claws.
No scales.
No marks of the Abyss.
He was human.
But something had touched him.
Something old and powerful and utterly foul.
Who was he?
What had happened to him?
And more importantly— Why had Theo brought him here?
The questions burned in my throat, but I swallowed them.
The man’s chest rose once.
Shallow.
Barely perceptible.
Then it stopped.
Then it rose again.
He was dying.
Right here, on my quilt, in my home.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
Theo hovered at my elbow, still in his adult form, still trembling.
His borrowed hands were shaking.
“Theo,” I said.
“Yes?” “Bring me a bowl of water.
Clean water.
And the green jar from the shelf—the one with the silver lid.” He didn’t ask questions.
He was already running.
The moment he disappeared through the doorway, his form shrank.
The broad shoulders narrowed.
The muscles melted away.
By the time he reached the kitchen, he was a child again—scrawny, fragile, looking like a strong wind could knock him over.
I turned back to the stranger.
The armor had to come off.
I reached for the straps at his shoulders.
The leather was stiff with dried blood and rain, cracked in places, and the buckles were corroded.
I wrestled with them for what felt like an eternity, my fingers slipping, my breath coming in short, sharp huffs.
Finally, the chest plate gave way.
It clattered to the floor with a sound like a bell tolling.
And I saw what lay beneath.
My breath caught.
The wounds were wrong.
Deep gashes crisscrossed his torso—some clean, like sword cuts, others ragged and torn, as if something had clawed him.
The edges of each wound were blackened, not with dried blood, but with something else.
Something that pulsed faintly in the dim firelight.
Demonic energy.
It writhed inside him like worms beneath skin.
I could see it moving, coiling, feeding.
And at the center of it all, just below his ribs, was the source.
A stab wound.
Deep.
Narrow.
Precise.
The kind of wound a blade would make.
But not just any blade—something enchanted, something poisoned.
The flesh around it was necrotic, black and weeping, and the smell that rose from it made me gag.
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.
Can I even save him?
The thought lingered for only a moment.
There wasn’t much point wondering.
I was already committed