Book 19: Invitation

Naomi

My hand is the size of a cantaloupe but burns a bright, furious red. Little splotches of the deepest blue fan across my knuckles, and even the slightest twitch of my fingers sends a sharp, blinding pain ricocheting all the way up to my shoulder. 

Fraser adjusts his glasses, pressing them high against his straight, regal nose. Somewhat straight, I realize, since this is the closest I’ve been to the man so far. A faint scar stretches across the bridge of his nose, highlighting a kink from a very old break. The three deep gashes on his face are new and bold, even in the dim, fiery lantern light, but already skillfully tended and pitched together by bandages, like he’s had this happen to him before. 

We’re in his kitchen, I believe. It is a kitchen, but dated by several hundred, if not thousands, of years. There’s no refrigerator or d