When it did, would it just be a weight dragging him down, like a statue's arm attached to his body?
For a while, at the beginning, he had wondered if he could stop the progression of the disease by taking the drastic step of amputating his arm. He had been struggling with the possibility, knowing that if he was going to do it, he needed to do it soon. It was such a final step, though. There was no going back if he did something like that.
Although it would be a relief to be free of the pain.
But he was past the point now when it would have helped. A few days ago, he'd found some new patches of stone on his side. They had remained small for now, but he was starting to be able to feel them when he moved, tugging at his skin as if something had been uncomfortably stuck to his body.
There was no going back now. He had to find a cure or die.
A light tap came at the door. "Reive?" Jess called softly. "Are you awake?"
He reached hastily for the covers, pulling them to cover his arm. "I'm not decent," he said quickly.
There was a brief pause, and he realized that, given how things had gone last night, the hasty semi-lie might not be that much of a deterrent. Then she said, "I just wanted to ask if you'd like me to order breakfast for you."
"Sure." He wasn't really hungry, any more than he had been lately, but it would give her something to do other than coming in and seeing him like this.
"Do you want anything in particular?" Jess asked through the door.
"Something with meat in it." Meat was good for shifter healing, even if he didn't feel the usual craving for it. "Steak and eggs, maybe, if they have it."
"Will do," she said, sounding pleased.
Reive waited for her soft footsteps to retreat, then sat up and reached for his phone. He checked to see if Heikon had texted him, only remembering as he called up the empty text list that, with the new European SIM card in his phone, he had a different number now. No one could reach him.
His text to Uncle Heikon yesterday, sent from the parking lot of an Indiana gas station, had been simple and to the point. Might have spotted more gargoyles in Indiana; not sure if that's what they are. Their leader wears black robes and may have powers beyond what we've seen from them before. It looks like actual magic. Know anyone like that?
He'd gotten Heikon's response at the airport: Thanks. I'll look into it. Do you think they're a threat to the clan?
No, he had texted back. They really weren't; they didn't seem interested in dragons at all.
Do as you see fit, then, Heikon texted him. Report back if anything changes.
No request for further information. A year ago, Heikon would have demanded details. Now he was busy with his mate Esme and their kids and grandkids. Uncle Heikon, the seasoned warrior, had turned into a family man.
And Reive, who had spent most of his life at his family's beck and call, taking orders first from his cruel grandfather and then from Uncle Heikon, found that he really didn't mind being out of touch for a while.
He got up and went into the bathroom. He was going to need clean clothes; he wished he'd remembered to pick up something yesterday. The bathroom, at least, had a full set of the usual hotel toiletries, as well as a couple of sealed, plastic-wrapped overnight kits in a drawer, so he was able to comb his hair, brush his teeth, and shave. He examined his side in the mirror and was unsurprised to see that the gray patches on his flank and hip had enlarged, growing from pea-sized to better than quarter-sized.
There had better be some answers for me in Italy, or I'm screwed.
He could smell tempting food smells now, and in spite of himself, he found that he was slightly hungry. With a certain reluctance, he pulled on his rumpled clothes from yesterday, and went out into the common room of the suite.
"Hi," Jess said with her mouth full. "Uh, I ordered a lot of food."
She certainly had. There were pastries and fruit and plates of eggs, along with a steaming carafe of coffee, and a steak that looked and smelled amazing.
"Apparently steak and eggs isn't really an Italian breakfast thing," Jess said, swallowing. She had already demolished most of a plate of eggs and pastries. "But they said they could send up a steak, and I said yes please, and—uh, if you don't want it, I'll take half of it. I hope you like it rare."
"Rare is great," Reive said. He was surprised how hungry he felt, confronted with all of this—and with Jess, freshly showered in a clean white blouse and a long tan skirt, with her damp hair pinned up into a curly pile. Her bare feet were tucked under her, and she laid into the food with gleeful abandon.
Reive cut off part of the steak and transferred it to her plate, then got to work on his own breakfast. He actually was hungry. He went through the steak, the remaining eggs, and had started in on some pastries before he finally felt like he'd had enough. He used to eat like that all the time, but since the gargoyle poisoning, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd had that much.
"That was amazing," Jess said, flopping back on the couch. "So now we roll ourselves out of the hotel room, right? We aren't really staying for three days, are we? Oh!" She sat up abruptly without waiting for an answer. "So I woke up at like two in the morning because of time zones or whatever, and I've spent the last few hours working on your translations."
Her phone was beside her on the couch, sitting on top of a stack of papers. Jess lifted it off and held out the sheaf of papers toward him. It was hotel stationery covered in her tidy librarian's handwriting.
"Wow." He flipped through it briefly. The pages were numbered and appeared to have a table of contents. "You didn't have to stay up all night working on this."
Jess shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. "This kind of thing is fun for me. I couldn't sleep anyway. And I've read it all before a bunch of times, so I was able to remember some of it, and it was just a matter of trying to pick out the parts that might be useful for helping your friend."
"My friend," he murmured. "Right. Jess, listen, about last night, I'm sor—"
"There's not a lot there. I mean, not a lot that's helpful. It's pretty incoherent and very metaphysical."
Reive gave up on trying to apologize. If she was upset with him, she had every right to be. He continued to flip through the pages. She was right; even in English, most of it was beyond him. It was more like poetry than a magical formula for turning flesh into stone, or vice versa.
"But after seeing those guys at the library," Jess went on, sounding a little perkier, "I'm starting to think there's more to those symbols than just medieval alchemists being a little bit nuts about turning lead into gold, you know? Unfortunately, if there was ever a part of the book that explained it in any detail, it's either gone or at Romano's place."
Reive looked up from the book, and smiled at her. "So how do you feel about a drive?"
A few minutes later, with Jess's things hastily stuffed into her suitcase, they were out the door. Reive looked around, and then hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and ducked down a side stairwell.
"This feels so cloak and dagger," Jess giggled. She was carrying the suitcase herself; he'd offered, but she shook her head and Reive wasn't going to push the issue. She had seemed to have no problem carrying it all over Rome yesterday. Apparently moving book carts around built up some serious muscles.