The blue ink didn't just sit beneath my skin; it burned. It crawled through my veins like a line of liquid fire, turning the dark, bruised vessels of my wrist into bright, glowing tracks of neon blue. Every heartbeat felt like a hammer striking an anvil inside my chest. I looked down at the scrap of paper in my hand, the Curator’s question staring back at me like an accusation: “Who is holding the pen now, Esther?”
"Esther, your arm..." Leo choked out from the corner.
He was leaning heavily against the mud brick wall, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. His trousers were shredded at the knee where the silver glass cogs had exploded into his flesh. Real, thick human blood was pooling around his boot, staining the dry dirt floor of our mother’s house. He had used his own body to sh
