Author's Notes: Today is my birthday! For my present, have a chapter in which I torture a character :D

"This outer circle here," Kalibose traced the tiny runic circle inscribed on each knuckle of this left hand, "was to prevent me from breaking through the puppetry spell." It was surprising how blase he was to his tattoos now, when the acquisition of them had been so traumatic. Mae's face looked white as she gingerly touched the tattoos, as if they were still fresh and hurt him. He indicated the inner circle that was so small and intricate only magic must have put it there.

"The inner circle was to enhance my speed and accuracy in casting. As it was encased within the first circle, I couldn't access it, only Mannerel."

"Can you use them now?"

Mae's voice was tiny, barely over a whisper. Kalibose nodded slowly.

"Yes, but that would come with time."

He sat for a moment, looking at his own knuckles and the tattoos that gleamed in purple ink on them as bright if they had been put on last week. There had been so much that had happened in Eldre'thalas, and most of it during his first year. It was hard to decide where to go next, to keep the story coherent. He dug around in his memories that shoved to the surface like so many corpses raised unwillingly from the dead.

All of a sudden he took a good look at his mate across the table. Mae was sitting hunched over her mug of tea, but she wasn't drinking it. Her face was ghostly pale, and her mouth was pressed into a line while her eyes looked far away. For a moment he was terrified that she was having a vision, even without any warning signs, and he was halfway out of his chair before the rest of his brain caught up. He sat back down, swallowing hard against the sudden lump in his throat.

"Mae, does it bother you to hear this?"

She looked up at him, her eyes unreadable in the shallow light of the lone flickering candle on the table.

"Of course it does, Kalibose. I am listening to how the love of my life was abused and tortured while he was still a child. But," and she forced a small smile onto her face, that broke his heart, "if it is this hard for me to listen to, then how hard is it for you to keep it inside? I don't want you to stop, Kalibose. Tell me the entire thing, and then we can both heal from it."

Her face was so beautiful in the still light of the moon, and he stared at the table so he didn't have to see how his words hurt her.

"The tattoos hurt. They itched and burned for days, and for some reason, Merrick was really angry about them and wouldn't speak about it, so I had to keep it to myself."

"Why would he do that?" Mae interrupted. Kalibose shrugged.

"I think, even though he saw all the pain I was in, that a small part of him was jealous at the extra power I had been granted."

He snorted humorlessly and took a sip of his lukewarm tea.

"We were both, after all, addicts first, before we were friends."