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As sticky as blood was, it did a terrible job of holding certain things closed—namely, your skin. Oh, it would do it eventually, Dominique knew from experience, but not fast enough, not right now. Not nearly fast enough. The blood was coming too fast, the wound was too deep, something was very, very wrong, and who knew if she could fix it in time. —In time for what? She wasn’t sure, but she could feel on her shoulders and in her chest that time was running out.
Her blood was crimson, despite the odds. It was a lot of it and quite warm, all over her party dress, dulling the sequins sewn into the fabric.
She pressed her back against the wall and swore low under her breath. It had been a good run so far, but now it seemed that her luck had run on ahead and left her behind. Well, whatever: everyone’s luck ran out someday. She didn’t have time now to bemoan her situation—she had to get out, or at least get her information out, by any means necessary.
The gash ran deep, so much so that Domi thought that it might actually be helpful as an infographic for anyone studying first aid—or at least could have been prior to all that blood gluing the torn fabric of her dress to her skin and her meat. Now it was all just a mess—and, concerningly enough, it wasn’t hurting too much anymore.
I’m going into shock, Domi thought, far more calmly than she really should have been, given the situation. Noé would have panicked, if he were here, and Louis—
This was not the time to think of Louis. Not now, when there was a very real chance that Domi could die. She had a job to do; she might be really very severely injured, but that was not enough of an excuse to bring back to her family. Most of the time, a de Sade could do as she pleased; this was not one of those times.
—Fuck, but her wound hurt. Maybe it wasn’t shock, then; the pain was fading in and out like a heartbeat. Her heartbeat? Or someone else’s? Someone whose heart beat in time with her own, with her pain—no, no, she wasn’t thinking of him now.
Domi gritted her teeth and cast her eye over the trail of blood she had left behind her. This was an issue, she knew it was. Quite frankly, she was lucky that nobody had yet followed her here—but then again, it wasn’t like she was supposed to be here in the first place. Most operatives wouldn’t have been able to survive the security system here; they’d be dead in pieces on the blades in the room she’d just left, if they made it there alive at all. But the de Sades were not most operatives; even Domi, the weakest and most useless member of her family, had had very little trouble most of the way into the building. Here only she had struggled; the room had very nearly gotten the better of her, but in the end she’d still made it out, bloody and injured but alive.
The problem had been the theatricality of the room. Nobody ever expected to have to make their way through an auditorium full of swinging blades, and so Domi had been nearly entirely unprepared. —An excuse Veronica wouldn’t accept, but whatever, it was the truth and Domi was bleeding too much to think of a nice-sounding lie. She sucked in air through her teeth, pushed it out again, braced herself to examine the wound.
The blade had dug in deep. Were it not for the ice in her veins, it may have killed her immediately. Domi swallowed, peeled her dress away from the cut, examined the hot red blood.
Noé had pulled her to dance in a field of astérisque under a blue moon, once, years and years ago before blood-stained teeth and suffocating guilt had pushed them apart. There had been a part of Dominique that had feared that alone was enough to stain her blood blue; there had been a part of Dominique that would have been fine with that, if it was for Noé’s sake. But no: there was no sign at all that she had ever even let the blue moon’s light touch her. Somehow, it was almost disappointing.
She pressed her flesh together with one hand, as close as she could get it, trying her best to keep her breathing from getting too loud. With her other hand, she focused on the structure of the water in her blood—de Sades weren’t good with water in its liquid form, but she didn’t want this blood to stay liquid. It cooled against the hot pain; she waited as the red blood turned dark brown, and then waited some more until ice crystals had formed on the new scabs, and the pain was replaced with a dull, aching cold.
Domi stood up; the now-dried blood on her legs cracked. This was not the best way to use the de Sade gift; your blood was more sacred than your life, and tampering with it a betrayal of the worst kind. Domi had not heard of anyone even trying to make ice from the water in their veins, even though she’d seen it once, in a castle with a cursebearer, but it was a good way of closing up your wounds, a good way of making sure you didn’t die.
It wasn’t foolproof, of course. Nothing at all could be, especially ways not to die. But this—
She put her hand against the wall and started down the hallway again, dizzy from blood loss. Once this was over and done with, she would be free, at least for a little while. She could go see Noé; she could relax and pretend that nothing hurt. She could, for a little while, go home—
Leaving the rapidly-cooled pool of her own blood behind, Domi started down the hall once more to finish her job.