Extreme cold did not bother Evenjos. She barely noticed it.

But Ariock, she remembered, had the vulnerabilities of a fundamental corporeal state. She used her powers to melt snow around the glacial crevice where she had brought him, until ice melt cascaded over the entrance in a waterfall. With Ariock safely inside, she helped it to freeze faster than it naturally would have. Soon she and he were sealed inside a cavern of thick, solid ice.

She blanketed Ariock with her wings, transforming her metal feathers into something like a warm pelt. But the alteration required focus which she could not spare during a healing procedure. So she sought scraps of lichen and other fuel, and used her powers to speed them inside the cave. She carved bowls from rocks and sparked flames inside them.

Soon her makeshift lamps gave the ice cavern a cozy glow. The walls began to sweat. Her gathered bits of fire fuel would eventually burn out, but she would worry about that later.

Evenjos traced the strong line of Ariock’s jaw with a nearly insubstantial finger.

It seemed risky to be cooped up alone with him, surrounded by smoldering lamplight and the purity of snow. He would jump to the wrong conclusion if he woke up.

Oddly enough, Evenjos found that her sexual desire for the giant had waned by quite a lot. She required unapologetic bluntness. Ariock was not that person. He might be an avatar of war, yet his baseline nature was ridiculously constrained and reserved and gentle. He had never learned how to let loose safely.

Also, he was too much trouble.

Evenjos really didn’t enjoy dealing with guilt. Ariock was going to be an emotional disaster once he recovered. Chemically-induced brain damage might leave him with a propensity for extra mood swings. He would likely be infuriated at himself, even without the neurotoxin. What fun.

Evenjos had enough problems of her own without absorbing extreme moodiness.

She would be okay with letting someone else—like that one-legged nurse—deal with his relentless self-loathing.

Ariock’s life spark guttered. His veins were turning black against his ashen skin, as the Torth poison began to overwhelm his drugged body.

“You will get better.” Evenjos said it out loud, making it a promise.

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She delved into his sleeping brain with her diagnostic sense. She crept past astrocytes, and investigated neuronal ensembles with the greatest care. She traced axons through cellular nuclei to the branching ends of their dendrites. She studied ionic voltage levels and transduction proteins.

There.

Nothing natural would bind so tightly to postsynaptic glutamate receptors, yet slip unnoticed past the re-uptake transmitters that should clear them from synapses. This must be the cause of his out-of-control rage.

The neurotoxin had spread throughout his entire brain.

Evenjos solidified, tapping her chin in thought. Brains were so delicate. So difficult to work on.

She yearned for the teachers and colleagues she had lost. This would be a tricky operation. She might pull it off on her own, but she would have felt much more capable with at least one expert neurosurgeon by her side.

Might Thomas offer his expertise across light years of distance? Could he be useful without reading her mind?

“…hiding in the hills outside the…”

“…hold out until we can…”

Evenjos had set her earpiece aside on icy ground. It crackled continuously with distant voices.

“…only a few penitents turned. Most of them are…”

“…Kessa must be in one of the shelters.”

“…survived.”

No. Thomas had his own emergencies to deal with. This was too much to ask.

Evenjos tried to give herself a pep talk. She could do this alone. Surely she could?

She had to act now, as the neurotoxin was busily wrecking its way through Ariock. Cleansing it molecule-by-molecule would not be efficacious. It would cause irreversible brain damage—and likely death—before Evenjos could complete that arduous process. She had to take a risk and expedite the brain cleanse without damaging her patient.

Making precipitous decisions all by herself was nothing new. She used to be a goddess-empress.

But Garrett and Thomas and Ariock had changed that for her, hadn’t they?

Ariock, in particular, had sacrificed his own strength and blood in order to resurrect a mysterious winged prisoner. No one else would be so recklessly kindhearted.

Ariock had bypassed all of the obstacles that prevented uncounted heroes from rescuing her in the past. He had showed up for her, and caught her in his arms after smashing the mirrors so she could finally reenter the realm of the living.

She owed Ariock every bit as much as she owed Thomas.

Evenjos sent her awareness tiptoeing through Ariock’s neurons. She must take risks to give him back what he had lost. She experimented with warping a re-uptake transmitter, trying to make it drain the neurotoxin into intracellular spaces.

No good. That could cure his rage, but it wouldn’t save his mind.

Well, might a lysosomal deaminase eliminate her warped transmitter after it had done its job?

That might work.

Evenjos synthesized a string of mRNA code and replicated it. Ariock was running out of time. His mind was shutting down, closing off avenues that led back to consciousness. Evenjos began to lace the replicated mRNA through every instance of her modified neurotransmitter.

As long as she was messing with Ariock’s functionality, she figured she would keep him unconscious. The best thing to do, she thought, was to make sure he slept, until someone with the capacity to deal with huge Ariock-sized problems—Vy, she supposed—was available.

He would need a lot of counseling once he woke up and realized what he had done.