Elowen's POV
I was still somewhere between asleep and gone when I felt hands lift me into a sitting position, settling me against the sofa back. Two fingers pinched my cheeks gently and a voice said, "Blow."
Blow what? I exhaled a few uncertain puffs and succeeded mainly in breathing warm air directly into an open palm. The warmth bounced back onto my face, carrying the faint clean scent of his skin, and I turned toward it the way you turn toward heat in a cold room.
He paused. Then he tilted my head and said it again. "Blow."
I tried harder this time. After what felt like a significant personal effort, a cool sticky pressure landed on my cheek, cold and faintly sweet and distinctly uncomfortable, and then I sank back down into the dark.
What came after came in pieces. Scalding water,
