Nothing but the sound of running water met his ears.
Orpheus knocked again. Got no response. He tried the handle and found it locked. A shot of panic rushed through him.
Skyla’s boots clicked as she pushed off the chair. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Orpheus jiggled the knob again. “Gryphon? Answer me.”
Nothing.
“Skata.” Orpheus stepped back from the door, centered himself, and called up a simple spell to free the lock. A click resounded. He turned the knob.
Steam enveloped the room, fogged the mirror. Through the frosted glass he could see Gryphon standing naked under the spray, scrubbing at the skin on his arms. “Gryph? Are you okay? I knocked and knocked and you didn’t answer.”
“Can’t get clean,” Gryphon murmured. “Have to get it off. Just a little more.” He stopped scrubbing, slammed both hands over his ears. “Stop!”
Gryphon shook his head violently, then went back to scrubbing at his skin again, murmuring faster, “Can’t get clean. Can’t get clean…”
Shit. He wasn’t better. He was getting worse. That panic morphed to all-out dread as it pushed its way back up Orpheus’s chest. “Come on, Gryphon. That’s enough. Let’s get you out.”
Orpheus was aware Skyla was standing in the doorway as he reached for a towel and grasped the shower door, that the Orb was in plain view on the floor. But he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered right now was his brother.
Orpheus pulled the door open. Then froze. “Holy gods…”
Blood ran like rivers from Gryphon’s arms, his legs, his face and torso. His fingers were bloody stumps where he’d dug into his skin over and over, scrubbing harder with each pass.
“Gryphon, stop!” Orpheus threw the towel around Gryphon’s shoulders and hauled him out of the shower. Gryphon hollered and hurled his weight into Orpheus, knocking them both to the ground with a crack. They grappled across the bathroom tiles until Orpheus got behind Gryphon, closed one arm across his brother’s head, used the other to immobilize his arms, then hooked Gryphon’s legs so he couldn’t break free.
Gryphon struggled once, twice more, then collapsed against Orpheus and broke down, his entire body shaking with soul-rattling sobs. Water and blood ran from Gryphon’s skin into Orpheus’s clothes, dripped onto the floor around him. “I can’t get it off,” he cried. “It’s all over me. Inside me. I just want it to go away. I just…oh, gods, make it go away.”
His body convulsed in Orpheus’s arms, and the sobs turned to full-body trembles Orpheus felt all the way to his very core.
Orpheus caught Skyla’s horror-filled gaze in the doorway, where she stood still as stone. And his heart—the heart he thought he didn’t have—contracted beneath the earth element still resting against his chest. “Get help,” he whispered. “Find someone who can help my brother.”
***
It was hours later when Skyla peeked her head back into Gryphon’s room. Though it was quiet, there were several people taking up space. Callia, Queen Isadora’s personal healer, held Gryphon’s wrist on the far side of the bed and glanced at the clock high on the wall. Theron conversed quietly with Isadora near the window. Skyla knew from her conversations downstairs that several other Argonauts had come and gone through the night, but Orpheus remained, sitting in a chair next to Gryphon, his elbows leaning on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him while he watched his brother sleep.
The image of the big Argonaut clawing at his flesh wouldn’t leave her head. Neither would the blood that had covered him and the floor and Orpheus when Orpheus had tackled Gryphon in the bathroom. Every time she thought of what he’d been through in the Underworld, her mind skipped to Orpheus and the years and years he’d been trapped there himself. The gruesome things he must have endured. The fact that—thankfully—he couldn’t remember them.
She’d considered telling Orpheus the truth about their relationship so many times. Had pondered what it would do to him to learn who and what he really was. But after seeing Gryphon, she knew she couldn’t. It wasn’t about her or what she’d be losing. She didn’t want to hurt Orpheus. And bringing up the past would do only that. It would dredge up something that was better off dead and buried.
Heads turned. Orpheus looked over his shoulder, eyes shadowed and bloodshot. But they brightened just a touch when they caught sight of her, and warmth flooded her belly in response.