“Technically,” I reminded him, as I worked to get the second arm back in its proper place, “Dory is your master. You pledged yourself to her.”
“Yeah, only you are her, right? I mean, kind of the hardcore version, but . . .”
I shook my head. “We are different people.”
“Uh huh. Who happened to start off as one person and share the exact same DNA.”
“Twins start off as one person. And they share DNA.”
“But they aren’t born as one and live that way for eleven or twelve years!”
“They also don’t live more than five centuries.” The bone was knitting wrong. I adjusted it. “The percentage of our lifetimes that we lived as one is becoming an insignificant figure.”
“Yeah, but like . . .” He scowled. “Trust me to get into a deep philosophical discussion when my head’s pounding and my eyes are crossing and I still don’t got legs yet.”
“Your arms are healing. Trying to do too much at one time—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re the expert.” He closed his eyes.
I was not, in fact, having spent far more time killing vampires than healing them, but thought that this might not be the best moment to point that out.
We sat there quietly for a while. He looked so thin and pale, like a teenager, with his hair falling over his clammy forehead and his face speckled with fey blood. It had dried brown and looked almost like freckles.
And even when healed, he would not be a large man, or a particularly strong vampire. He was a master, but he would never reach the upper rings of power. I had seen enough to know.
Yet, he had been brave today, and honorable, and loyal. I had known far stronger men who would have fled at one look at what we faced. But he had stayed, and he had helped.
I did not think I would have made it out of the ley line without him.
“I would also be your master, Raymond Lu,” I finally said. “If you wish it.”
The eyes opened, and as always, it was a surprise to see that they were blue. He was half-Dutch and half Indonesian, I remembered Dory saying. A bastard child never wanted by either parent, on his own in a hostile world far sooner than he should have been. And then a vampire with a master who, while not abusive by their standards, had not valued him. He had been given as a mocking sort of gift to Dory, discarded after centuries of service, like a dirty handkerchief.
But she had recognized his worth, as did I.
“You would?” he asked, sounding confused.
“It would be an honor.”
Ray stared at me. He seemed to do that a lot. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “Well, all right, then.”
“I am happy to have you with me on this journey, Raymond Lu.” I looked around at the still intact shield. “Do you happen to know how we get out of here?”
Chapter Seven
Dorina, Faerie
Ray was cursing again, probably out of frustration. I was feeling rather like that myself. I could see the world spread out so invitingly all around us, could watch a couple of bright yellow birds chase each other across the sky, could feel the wind that rustled through the treetops, even smell the flowers. But I couldn’t touch any of it.
We could not get out.
“They’re gonna find us,” Ray said, pacing back and forth across the bodies. His legs had been reattached, but they were not functioning very well yet, or perhaps he was tripping on the corpses. “They’re gonna find us in the middle of a pile of their people who we obviously killed—”
“Perhaps they died in the crash?” I offered.
“And we didn’t?” He whirled on me. “Plus, you cut that guy’s arm off! You think they’re not gonna notice that?”
I regarded the fey in question. Ray had a point. He was looking a little worse for the wear, with a missing arm, a proud, blood splattered face, and long, red-stained, silver blond hair. They were so beautiful, these creatures, like their world. I felt a certain . . . not regret, but melancholy, that they’d had to die.