Page 145 of Death of the Glass Angel
“Bond?” Talon asked, holding up the anmarite to his arm.
“Like a new skin. It would become part of your body.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Good question. . .” Felsin muttered, reading over the notes. “You were to be the first experiment. Which begs the question of why a clockwork soldier awaited us in the tomb.”
“Clockwork soldier?”
“Des named it.”
“Fitting.”
Felsin flicked the page. “If I had to guess, we should shape the metal to match your arm before grafting it on.”
Exhaling heavily, Talon set the anmarite down on the anvil and stepped back. The task ahead would require a great deal of magic, and therefore, a great deal of his blood.
Setting the notes aside, Felsin picked up a measuring rod from the tool bench and gestured for Talon’s arm. He jotted down the dimensions of the wound and picked up a hammer. “Forging isn’t exactly quick,” Felsin said. “This might take a while.”
Valkyrie made herself comfortable on the bench, stretching her legs over where Talon had been sitting. “Don’t let him kill himself.”
“I know my limits,” Talon said, eyes shifting nervously.
He doesn’t.
He’s lying.The voices whispered.
“Well, lucky for you, I’m a half-decent blacksmith.” Felsin stepped to the other side of the anvil. “But I’m accustomed to normal metal that obeys the forge. I guess you’ll. . . soften it for me?”
“That’s the idea.” Talon rolled up his sleeves, eyeing the resilient little rock. “Try to work quickly.”
“This thing will be stuck to you for. . . well, maybe forever.” Felsin pointed out. “You don’t want shoddy workmanship.”
“I already don’t trust your ‘workmanship.’”
“And what makes you think so lowly of me?”
“The fortune telling?” Talon suggested. “The ugly coat. The fact you knew my name before we met and still haven’t told me how.”
“Pff.” Felsin exhaled. “Fortune. Teller. Put the pieces together, Talon.”
Valkyrie chuckled, a rare sound from her. Wrinkling his nose as he stared at Felsin in distaste, Talon returned to the anmarite. “Fine.”
“Do you treat everyone like this?” Felsin asked, smirking. “Or do you just like me?”
“Are you flirting with me now?”
“Would you like that?”
Rolling his eyes, Talon looked away from the irksome man and focused on the anmarite, extending a hand above the metal. A spark could emerge from his fingertips, extracted from his blood, so long as he called upon his catalyst. But, gods, did he hate doing so.
Only Lark knew Talon’s catalyst was fear. Of all they shared, Valkyrie and Talon had left the nature of their magic unspoken.
Fear seemed harder to invoke each time Talon called upon it. Biting his lip, he tried to envision his worst nightmare.
Perhaps the true nightmare was that he feared nothing. Not death. Not failure. Not a life spent alone. The night of the fire, Talon had thrown away his chance at happiness.
He’d met Des, someone he wanted to keep in his life, but couldn’t. Each step brought him deeper into an endless hall cast in dusk, approaching night but never the sun.
