Jakk's right arm snaked up and over Venn's shoulder, forearm sliding under his throat. His left hand caught his own wrist, locking the hold in place. He pivoted his hips, dragging Venn down with him.
Venn jerked, fingers finally ripped away from Jakk's scorched ribs.
Jakk's legs hooked around Venn's waist, anchoring him in place.
"Cremation Bell," Jakk whispered against his ear.
Venn choked out a strangled laugh. "You really—name—"
Jakk squeezed.
He didn't flood out, didn't blow heat in a wild, useless blast. He poured it inward, into the circle of his arms, into the tight ring of muscle and bone wrapped around Venn's neck. The Brinefurnace reef roared, ethanol stoking it to a white, controlled fury.
The air between their bodies went from hot to unbearable.
Venn's jellyfin lines flared in panicked response, lightning trying to punch outward. The current raced along Jakk's arms, trying to force his fingers open, to make his muscles spasm and release.
His nerves lit up like fusewire. His teeth clacked together hard enough to chip.
He held on.
The Hydrarchy seal in the corner fizzed, glow stuttering. Overhead lights dimmed and brightened in frantic pulses, caught between jellyfin draw and Brinefurnace bleed.
Venn thrashed, heel needles scrabbling for purchase on the floor. His hands clawed at Jakk's arm, the skin blistering under his fingers even as the jellyfin strain tried to shock a path free.
"Let—go—" he gurgled.
"Been…" Jakk's voice shook, "…holding on… too long already."
His own skin blistered where their bodies pressed together, the smell of burned cloth and hair and flesh thick in the air. Spots danced in his vision. His lungs burned. His heart hammered against his ribs in a frantic staccato.
He felt, dimly, the jellyfin lightning falter.
The glow along Venn's spine went from blazing white to fractured, sputtering threads. His kicks slowed. His fingers slipped on sweat and scorched skin.
"Venn," Jakk said, words raw. "We could have… chosen different cages."
Venn made a small, choked sound that might have been a curse, or a denial, or the beginning of something else.
Then his weight sagged.
Jakk held the choke for two more heartbeats—long enough to make sure—then forced his hands open.
He and Venn collapsed in a smoking, tangled heap.
For a long, awful moment, Jakk couldn't move.
His arms wouldn't answer. His legs were limp. Every breath hurt. Jellyfin aftershocks crawled along his nerves. The Brinefurnace reef pulsed in exhausted, satisfied throbs.
"Jakk?" Tamsin's voice was very small.
He turned his head enough to see her, vision bleary. "M'fine, guppy," he slurred. "Just… overcooked."
He wanted to say more. Tell her she was safe. Tell Rell to get her out. Tell Gin… something he hadn't figured out yet.
Instead, the floor rushed up to meet him.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was Venn's pale face, the jellyfin glow guttered out along his spine, smoke curling from the red, blistered skin where Jakk's arms had hung on.
Venn was breathing.
Good, Jakk thought fuzzily, somewhere far away. Don't… want him dead. Just… stopped.
Then everything went black.
Silence rolled over the room.
Even the ever-present hum of Khelt's guts seemed to hold its breath.
Marren broke it with a sigh.
"Children," he said.
Gin flinched at how tired he sounded. Not angry. Not shocked. Just… inconvenienced, like someone had spilled ink on a report.
Marren stepped forward, reef sword hanging easy in his hand. He glanced briefly at Venn and Jakk's unmoving forms, at the blackened patches of floor where heat and electricity had kissed metal.
"As usual," he went on, "it falls to me to clean up after idealists."
He lifted the sword.
The polyps along the blade shuddered in anticipation, their tiny mouths opening and closing. Marren's expression barely changed as he dragged the edge along his own forearm in a practiced slice.
Blood welled, dark and thick.
He turned his arm, letting it run onto the blade.
The reef weapon drank.
The polyps flared, colors deepening, faint tendrils of translucent tissue extending to lap at the blood. Channels etched into the metal filled like capillaries, brightening from dull metal to something almost organic. A faint mist hissed along the edge, salty and cold.
Gin's bones went very, very still.
Rell sucked in a breath behind the table. Tamsin's fingers dug into her father's sleeve.
"Stay down," Rell whispered to her. "Stay—"
Marren flicked the sword.
A blade of water snapped off the edge, a compressed, translucent crescent that flew faster than Gin's eyes could fully track.
He moved anyway.
The Hemovore colony in his bones shoved him sideways a split second before his conscious mind caught up. The water blade didn't bisect him. It only cut across his ribs instead, ripping through cloth and skin.
Gin dropped himself against the wall, one hand clamping instinctively over the new wound. Warmth soaked his palm. His lungs stuttered.
"Ah," Marren said mildly. "You're quicker than you look."
Gin swallowed a hysterical laugh. "You should see me when I'm not missing half my blood."