A knock at the bathroom door made me jump. Why bother knocking when they had magic?

“Harker left.” It was Mark—Mar’kost—the alien who’d invaded my dreams for months. “You can come out now.” 

My breath caught in my throat. When he came in, could I make a run for it? Maybe, but he was fast. He would grab me before I made it to the balcony. I had to wait until he left or fell asleep. 

After a few moments, Mar’kost spoke again. “I’m coming in, Liza. If you’re undressed, put on a robe. Ten… nine…”

Every number was another stab of pain in my lungs. I desperately wanted to run or fight, but that would only get me tied up. I needed to play dumb, be the lunatic they thought I was.  

The bathroom door opened and shut. Footsteps sounded on tile. 

“Liza?” Mar’kost stepped closer. His shadow passed over the crack in the closet door. He opened it, letting light flood in. Crouching, he let out an exasperated sigh. “What are you doing? Don’t put your hand in your mouth. It’s filthy.” He grabbed my arm and pulled it away from my face. Frowning, he ran his fingers over my damp fist. 

Trying not to shiver, I slipped my hand from his grip. Now was the moment. How ould I convince him that I hadn’t realized this was real? “Have you ever thought of auto-canabalism? Like, obviously you would lose a lot of blood, but what if you managed to magically ingest any lost blood--would you end up with more or less mass after eating an arm?” 

He gaped at me. “Don’t eat your arm.”

“I wasn’t actually going to do it. It’s just a hypothetical.”

“Stop.” He shook his head. “You need to listen. This is reality. If you don’t treat it as such, you will die.”

“Sure.” I winked. “Anyway, what’s for dinner?”

“I’ll bring you dinner. I don’t want you making a scene in the dining hall.”

“Sounds good. I’ll hang out in the closet. Hey, this is a little cramped. Is your closet bigger?”

“Yes, but-”

I rushed out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, which was split in half by curtains. On the right half was a normal bed, but the left half featured a Raeve-sized bed. My chest panged, but I forced myself to stay quiet until the lump in my throat dissolved the smallest bit.

“Oh, this is why you didn’t tell Raeve we’re together. Are you two married or just dating?” I turned back to him, surveying the room. There were no windows, but the sight of my polearm in the corner by the door gave me a spark of hope. 

“We’re not courting.”

“Yeah, I got that when you pretended not to know me. But what about you and Raeve?”

He stiffened. “I didn’t mean you and I aren’t courting. I meant Raeve and I aren’t.”

“Then you’re married and I’m the mistress?” Forcing a smile, I did finger guns at him. “You know, I think that’s some people’s fantasy. Never been mine, but I’m up to trying it out in a dream. Sorry, in ‘reality.’” 

His tail flicked back and forth. “I’m not romantically involved with Raeve in any way.”

“Don’t worry; I’m not mad. I’ll just make another one of you so Raeve and I can both have one.” Grinning like a madwoman, I ducked in the closet. “Nice, roomy.” I turned around and sat with my back against the laundry hamper. “This is much better than the linen closet.”

Mar’kost stood in the closet doorway, staring down at me. “You can’t make another me.” 

“Why not?”

“This isn’t-”

“-a dream. Don’t you get tired of saying that all the time?”

“I do.” He dragged a hand through his head feathers. “Stay in the closet. I’ll be back soon.” 

I listened for the jingle of keys and the hallway door closing. After a few moments, I crawled across the room and peeked around the door frame. The living room was empty. Heart thudding behind my eyes, I leapt to my feet. At any moment, he could come back with dinner. I had no time to waste. 

I grabbed my polearm and a coil of rope off Mark’s backpack. My hands shook as I tied the rope to the balcony railing. It felt sturdy, but I hated trusting my life to my dubious knot skills and the balcony’s unknown construction quality. At least I was only on the second floor, so if I fell, I shouldn’t get hurt too badly. I tossed my polearm down first before realizing I had no idea how to safely rapel without a pulley and climbing harness.

In the grand scheme of things, rope burn and a twisted ankle weren’t nearly as bad as being imprisoned by violent aliens. I stepped over the railing and stood on the edge of the balcony. Gripping the rope as forcefully as I could, I tried to muster the courage to step back into empty air. My feet might as well have been glued in place. The memory of falling down the tunnel in the hill played over and over in my mind until my knuckles turned white from gripping the railing. 

“Felk-” There was a clatter, and a red scalewing ran out onto the balcony. I couldn’t tell whether it was Cadmus or Mar’kost, but he hauled me inside. Cursing under his breath, he closed the balcony door and pulled curtains to block it. His scales melted into sapphire blue skin. “What were you thinking?”

“I-” Fear clouded my mind. I needed an excuse, a dumb one to convince him I wasn’t really trying to run away. “I wanted to ride Bloodflight.” 

“Why didn’t you just ask?”

“You guys don’t think I can talk to drykons.”

He scoffed. “Liza, you reached me telepathically from another planet. That makes you the best telepath I’ve ever met. It doesn’t surprise me that you can talk to drykons, but there’s a difference between being able to communicate and being able to trust. That drykon is a wild animal that will turn on you the moment he realizes you have nothing to offer him.”

“She wouldn’t-” The thought of how much danger I’d been in today made my blood run cold. If I’d fallen off Bloodflight, Mar’kost probably wouldn’t have gotten to me in time. I’d be dead. “Fine, I won’t go flying. I’ll just hang around until Harker comes back to beat me.” I almost added ‘and you pretend not to hear in the other room,’ but I couldn’t say that and maintain my dreamy look. 

He touched my arm, and I flinched without meaning to--which made him frown. “I couldn’t let him hurt you if I wanted to.”

“Did you find that out before or after Raeve tried to kill me in my sleep?”

“How did you-”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually stupid.” But if I ever planned to escape, I couldn’t make him suspicious. “In the real world, I’m actually considered above average intelligence.” I flashed my best smile. “Anyway, you should leave me alone with Raeve so she can get it over with and wake me up. I don’t want Harker there, though; I just want it to be as quick and painless as possible, ‘cause this dream is freaky realistic.”

“Harker won’t hurt you again. Neither will Raeve or Thyr.”

“Sure, while you’re in the room, but as soon as you leave me alone with them, you’ll never have to worry about me again.” 

“They’re my team. They said they won’t hurt you, so they won’t.” 

“You’ve been brainwashed by my magic. Why would they tell you the truth?”

He paused, brows furrowed. “What makes you believe I’ve been brainwashed?”

“Just touching me affected your emotions. Imagine what kissing me does to you.” Guilt twisted my insides as a sick plan occurred to me. Maybe I could use the magic brainwashing to my advantage. I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my lips to his. Reaching out to his mind, I willed him to take me outside, away from this place. 

He pulled back. “Ah, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Chuckling wryly, he slipped out of my arms. “Your powers are impressive but raw. And unfortunately for you, it takes training to prevent your subject from gaining access to your mind while reading theirs.”

“What?” My heart leapt. How much had he seen?

“You know this isn’t a dream. You were trying to escape because you genuinely think you’re in more danger with us than you would be in the wilderness.” He held up a hand before I could argue. “You know I can’t harm you or allow you to be harmed. I don’t believe my team will hurt you, but I understand why you fear they might. Stay with me, and they won’t be able to do anything to you.”

“Until you find a way to fight off the brainwashing, of course.”

“I haven’t been brainwashed.”

“Obviously, a brainwashed person can’t tell they’ve been brainwashed.” I tried to shrug like I didn’t care. “You’ll turn on me sooner or later.”

“I won’t.”

“This is a circular argument.”

He crossed his arms. “Fine, I’m your thrall. I’ll protect you whether I want to or not, and I won’t allow my team to dispel the magic that makes me your thrall. Happy?”

“Not particularly, seeing as you’re just a healer, and your team has a deer man who can make magic grass, a walking tank with concrete-breaking claws, and a flying woman who can wield four weapons at once.”

“I’m a healer because I’m uniquely skilled at it, not because I’m unskilled in other areas.”

“You can beat all three of them in a fight?”

“I can evade them.”

“Even if they corner you?”

“I couldn’t be restrained unless they killed me--which they wouldn’t do--or put me in a box--which is exceedingly difficult to do.”

I wrapped my arms around his midsection and heaved, picking him up just an inch or so. 

“Is this a demonstration of affection?”

I put him down. “No, I was proving a point. Thyr could put you in a box.” 

“Could he?” He collapsed into a mound of opaque blue jelly with pants underneath and a shirt on top. Before I could comprehend what I was looking at, he oozed into his clothes and returned to his original form. “As I said, restraining a shifter is exceedingly difficult.”

“I can see that. What if they cast a spell on you from a distance?”

He hesitated long enough to answer my question. “That is unlikely.”

“But not impossible?”

“I don’t believe there’s anything for them to dispel.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I sat on the couch and took a plate from the coffee table. 

Mar’kost sat across from me in an armchair. “You don’t believe I am.” 

“What makes you think that?” I took a bite of nondescript pale pasta with a tangy sauce. 

“You’re nervous.”

“You can read my mind from a distance?”

“No, but I can sense your vitals. It isn’t an effect of our knight bond; I can sense anyone’s vitals within a certain range.”

“And can you manipulate them?”

He hesitated, which gave me yet another reason to be nervous. “I can’t hurt you.”

“How do you know? Unless you tried to hurt me but failed? Wait, in the tunnel, you tackled me and hit my head. That hurt. So either you’re wrong, or you’re only prevented from intentionally harming me, which means there’s nothing stopping you from closing your eyes and pushing me into the street.”

“Besides a conscience, you mean?” His eyes narrowed. “I highly doubt pushing someone into the street counts as unintentional harm.”

“So you don’t know all about the bond; you’re just guessing, and you did try to hurt me.”

He frowned. “I tried to cause you a modicum of pain to test whether I was able. There’s no reason to read any ulterior motives into it.”

“Isn’t there? I can’t think of any reason you’d want to know you could hurt me unless you thought you would have to fight me some time in the near future.”

“I wasn’t sure if you would come to your senses, so I needed to know if I could forcibly restrain you if you attacked Raeve again.”

A pang of guilt made my stomach twist. From what I’d gathered, arka was like radiation to most people around here, and I’d unleashed a lot of it on Raeve.

“Is she going to be okay?”

He nodded. “Your weapon’s range is short, and she didn’t receive a lethal dose.”

“And you can tell that for sure?”

“I can.” 

That was a small relief.