Ben's vision swam into focus, blurry at first, then crystallizing into the pinched face of Thimble hovering inches from his own.

  His body felt weightless, suspended in some viscous liquid that seemed to cradle every inch of him. But when he tried to move, nothing happened. Not a finger. Not an eyelid. Nothing.

  "Don't freak out," Thimble said, her voice distorted as if coming through water. "You're in a healing vat. Standard medical procedure. Also, you're on a pretty hefty paralytic."

  Ben tried to speak, but he was breathing through a hose. The panic should have been immediate, overwhelming—but whatever they'd dosed him with had muted even that response to a distant, academic concern.

  "Thorn dragged your sorry ass through the exit portal," Thimble continued,floatingg back. She had on some kind of clunky boots that levitated her to his eyeline. "Found us just in time. Another few minutes and..." She made a slicing motion across her throat. "Cap healed most of the major damage, but you still need time. We’re on the way to somewhere safe, so there’s nothing to do but rest up."

  Ben's thoughts churned sluggishly. Thorn had saved him. The last thing he remembered was pain, darkness, the sensation of falling. His brain felt like it was packed in cotton, connections forming and breaking at half-speed.

  Where was Thorn now? The little green bastard should be right there, perched on Thimble's shoulder with some smartass comment about Ben's inability to stay alive without supernatural intervention. The absence felt wrong.

  "Vitals are strong," Thimble said, her emerald eyes flicking to something above his head. "You'll be out in a day or so. Maybe less if you're lucky." A ghost of a smile crossed her angular features. "And you're very lucky, it seems."

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  Ben tried to form a question about Thorn, but before he could even complete the thought, Thimble tapped an icon on the glass off to the side. His eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and darkness swallowed him once more.

  "Why didn't you say anything?" Thimble's voice cut through the medical bay once Ben was under again. She turned to face him beside the vat where Thorn had been standing, just out of Ben's field of view.

  Thorn stepped forward, and Ben would have gasped if he'd been conscious. The formerly six-inch grimp now stood a full meter tall, though his proportions remained the same—spindly limbs, leathery green skin, and now slightly taller than the gnome. And six-inch, slightly curved horns going straight up.

  "What was I supposed to say?" Thorn snapped, though there was no real heat in it. "'Good sir! While you were dying, I magically bonded our souls together for all eternity in a ritual that should have killed us both! Oh, and I benefitted physically as a bonus. How's your day going?'" He paced the small area, his tail—no longer a barb but a dagger sized spike—lashing anxiously behind him.

  "You're being stupid," Thimble said, crossing her arms. "He’s going to remember that he can call for you telepathically, and it'll be worse the longer you wait."

  "I'm not ready," Thorn muttered, putting his forehead on the tank with a thunk. "He's going to be pissed. Like, apocalyptically pissed. And I don't even know what to say."

  Thimble's cybernetic arm whirred softly as she adjusted something on the monitoring equipment. "You don’t know that. He'll understand. It's not like you had much of a choice. You saved his life."

  Though she didn't say it aloud, Thimble couldn't help but think that the captain could have done something else—something that didn't involve permanent soul-binding. There were options, rare and expensive ones, but options, nonetheless. But what was done was done.

  "Just tell him the truth," she said, softer this time. "Tell him what happened in that chamber. All of it."

  Thorn stared at Ben's floating form, his expression unreadable. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one who's going to have to explain why he's stuck with me until one of us dies. For real dies, not the temporary kind."

  "Could be worse," Thimble shrugged. "You could be stuck with the captain."

  That, at least, earned a small laugh from Thorn. "Small mercies, I guess."