The Edifice

25. Prosthetics and Politics

Olivia

"Put your glass down," Lee had said and now I see why.

His instructions for using what he called "Second Sight" had been simple, more like a meditation exercise than any kind of spell casting. Unlike meditation however, this actually works when I try it.

I can't help but flinch when the world shifts into a strange, clearer focus. My knees crack on the underside of the table, wobbling the glass as I instinctively jump away from Lee. Or what I had once thought to be him.

I can almost see the resemblance after a second or so.

If I once noted his skin as being olive-toned, it now lives up to the description well and truly.

Lee is bathed in a dark, fir green color quite independent to the pulsing lights of the bar. His face is leaner, bone structure much sharper than ever before. Small, sharp spurs run the length of his widened cheekbones, culminating in two, inch-long horns either side of his forehead. Even his eyes are different.

His irises are the same gold that Katy's swam with, just slightly muted.

Right now, he directs his gaze down at his hands, a heart-wrenching contriteness in his expression as he rotates the collection of silver rings on his right hand... His right hand...

"Lee? What am I seeing right now?" I shake myself free of that horrifying, distorted vision. Lee returns to his original appearance.

"The truth, unfortunately," Lee replies. With a muttered incantation and a gesture as though he's cleaning his face, his humanity melts away and this time I can't make it return. "Welcome to glamours, Olivia. The Edifice's version of a contour kit. If you're looking at anyone powerful here in The Edifice, chances are that's not what they look like at all."

"I-I- But..." I swallow thickly, heart still beating a million times a minute as I try to adjust to the foreign creature sitting opposite me. "Lee, your face... Your arm."

Next to the mottled green skin of his left hand, that of his right is smooth and polished to an inhuman shine. In fact, it doesn't look like skin at all. The closer I look, the more I notice the twisting patterns that warp the pale, petrified wood of what can only be some kind of prosthetic.

"Yeah," he mutters softly, rolling up his sleeve to expose more of the bleached-sycamore wood that spans all the way to just below his elbow. Impossibly, Lee clenches and relaxes his fist in demonstration.

Curiosity gets the better of my apprehension.

"May I?"

Lee extends his hand willingly and I switch sides of the booth to carefully approach him, running my fingers across the wood. I don't know what I was expecting from a demonic magician. It's attached in the most basic possible socket, for all intents and purposes the artificial limb should be purely cosmetic. And yet... And yet his smooth, cool fingers curl as I touch his hand, each moving independently.

"A dryad friend of mine made it for me," he murmurs. "I- Violent magic can incite a type of... It's called spell rot here. I haven't used any in years, since but..."

"So, you used to be an aggressive and indecent guy?" I ask wryly, desperate to diffuse the dark frown he wears.

"Sure. "Used to."," He replies, rolling up his left sleeve to show a sickly black hue that's shifting along the capillaries of his other palm. "That's from earlier."

As a nurse it's fascinating to study him. As an idiot, it's a more intimate moment than I'd been prepared for.

Lee tilts his cheek next and my hand moves unconsciously to cup his face tremulously. I trace the bony spines along his cheek and our eyes meet.