Leon snapped upward with a coarse inhale, like the air wasn't willing to get into his lungs.
His fingers clawed at the armrests of the chair as if he expected the world to collapse beneath him again. Then air flooded his lungs too fast, burning, scraping, refusing to feel real.
His eyes darted across the room, panicked, wild, and then the world steadied.
He was back, back in the office, back in his body, not his own but Leon's.
The cathedral, the graveyard, the wolf-wraith, the sludge eating through his skin, all gone in an instant, cut clean like a dream someone had taken scissors to. But his chest still ached with the echo of fangs. His wrists still tingled where the ichor had forced itself inside.
He swallowed hard, breath shaky.
Madam Siera sat exactly where he had left her, behind the desk, pipe raised leisurely between two slender fingers. Smoke curled upward from her lips, drifting across the lamps and the shelves behind her.
"Well," she said, sighing slowly, "you're alive."
She tilted her head slightly, her monocle glinting with faint lamplight. "And based on the way you nearly broke that chair in half, I'm guessing the wraith didn't give itself up easily."
Cold sweat dripped down Leon's side, he opened his mouth, but all that came out was a rough, broken breath. His throat felt dry, like all moisture was sapped away. His mind was still sinking through layers of memory, his own, the wolf's, everything in between.
Siera tapped the ashes neatly into a tray. "Good job," she said, sounding almost bored. "You managed to tame it."
Leon dragged a trembling hand down his face. "It tried to kill me," he muttered. "Over and over."
"That's what wraiths do," she replied, unfazed. "That's why we have to tame them or in other occasions exorise them. If you wanted a polite visitor who would sit there and had tea with you, you should've swallowed a ghost instead."
Siera leaned back in her chair, pipe resting on her lower lip. "Good work." Her voice lowered, steady, almost gentle. "You hadn't lost your natural ability as an exorcist ."
He blinked, only now noticing the third jar on her desk, the one he'd opened was fogged over, empty except for a thin residue clinging to the glass like dried breath.
Siera snapped her fingers toward the door. "Go on. Get some rest before you pass out. I'm not dragging you to the infirmary, not today, I had already dealt with too much bullshit."
Taking another puff, she continued, "Your temporary dorm is two floors up. Right hall, last room. Make yourself comfortable."
Leon tried pushing himself up, but the room tilted unexpectedly. He braced a hand on the desk until his body remembered gravity again. His legs felt stiff, heavier than before, like something new lived inside the muscle, adjusting, settling.
He managed a nod.
"Mm." She waved him away. "Sleep before the wraith makes you faint again."
Leon slipped out of the office, closing the door gently behind him. The hallway outside felt strangely cold, the lanterns flickering with soft amber light. His footsteps echoed lightly despite his unsteady motions.
Every few seconds, a faint thrum pulsed beneath his skin, like a heartbeat that wasn't his. It crawled along the inside of his arm, down his ribs, across the back of his spine.
The wolf's echo, its breath was still lingering inside him.
He shook his head. His boots thudded softly on the wooden stairs as he trudged to the top, each step expanding the soreness in his legs.
By the time he reached the hallway of dorms, a yawn reached his mouth. The lanterns hummed softly in his ears. His heartbeat echoed louder than it should.
He reached the last door, pushed it open, and stepped into the room he'd been given.
It was modest but warm, shaped by dark wood and old stone. A small bed pressed against the far wall. A battered desk sat underneath a narrow window. A cracked mirror hung beside a metal sink, its reflection warped slightly at the edges.
Leon closed the door behind him, letting his back rest against it as he let out a long breath.
Safe. For now, at least.
What the fuck am I doing with my life… He thought as he slipped off his coat, wincing as dried blood caught on the tear in his shoulder. He tossed the coat onto the desk before approaching the mirror.
He looked mostly normal.
But his eyes felt different. A subtle intensity beneath the tiredness. A sharpness at the edges.
He lifted his left arm and noticed it almost immediately.
A mark.
Thin, dark lines etched into the inner side of his wrist. At first glance, it resembled a brand or a tattoo. But as he lifted his wrist closer to the light, the shape clarified.
A wolf's head, mouth open, sharp fangs bared.
The silhouette of the wraith.
Leon's breath caught softly in his throat. He brushed two fingers over the mark. The skin was warm, warmer than the rest of him, and faintly pulsing beneath his touch.
Almost like a heartbeat.
The bond Siera described, he could feel it.
He lowered his hand slowly. His entire body felt both heavier and lighter, exhausted yet filled with a simmering energy he didn't fully understand. Every muscle thrummed with leftover tension from the fight he never physically had.
He rubbed his forehead with a tired groan. "This is going to take some getting used to."
He wasn't afraid, not exactly, he had prior experience etched in his memories. Just overwhelmed.
He peeled off his boots, set his weapons on the desk, and lay down on the bed without bothering to straighten the sheets. The mattress sagged under him, old but strangely comforting. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, eyes half-lidded as the lantern flickered at the edge of his vision.
His body sank deeper into the mattress.
His breathing slowed.
Too much had happened in a single night.
The battle with the abomination.
Siera finding him.
The jars.
The wraith.
The graveyard.
The fight.
And now… This mark on his skin, pulsing quietly with a creature he'd killed and absorbed.