Shadows: A Six of Crows Fan fic

Chapter Thirty: Wylan

Wylan woke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The sound of his father's voice and his mother's screams still echoed in his mind, freezing him motionless on the bed. Why couldn't he speak? He couldn't move. His legs- Why couldn't he feel anything?

Wylan squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his breathing. He knew that the nightmare wasn't real, but then why could he still not move?

Wylan opened his eyes again, tried to look around and remember where he was. A dimly lit room, multiple beds, night shinning outside large glass windows. The infirmary. Right, he'd gotten injured, he'd- His vision snagged on the person in the cot next to him.

Looking tired but deep in concentration, Jesper was sprawled out on the bed beside him with his back leaned against the wall. In the flickering light of the candle between them, Jesper's dark eyes glinted as he stared intently at his clasped hands in front of him.

Wylan's heart began to calm as he watched Jesper lie there, more still than he had seen him in a while. As the calm washed over him, his memories returned but the lack of feeling in his legs persisted.

He'd been paralyzed. The idea of it still left him blank. He didn't know how to feel about it. When he'd woken up from the comma earlier that morning, Jesper had informed him of everything. He'd told him about getting to Shu-Han, the accident in the storm, the death of Inej's sailor, them bringing Wylan to the Monastery, and of course the report of the Healer. When he'd told him, Wylan had felt small waves of emotions, but mostly he'd felt nothing. It was like his body had numbed itself to everything to keep out the pain and was no longer distinguishing between the physical and the emotional. He was paralyzed, but he was supposed to get better? What was he supposed to do with that?

"Yes!" Jesper cried beside him. He was holding up an intricate-looking metal key with curves and engravings that made its surface ripple like the storm-tossed waves of the ocean.

"Your abilities are working again," Wylan said. Jesper startled as if he hadn't realized Wylan was awake. Then Jesper's eyes met his and he smiled, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed.

"Were they ever not?" Jesper asked as he switched over to sitting on Wylan's cot, holding out the key to him. "Look what I made!"

Wylan took the key and spun it gently in his fingers. Back in Ketterdam, they had been working on his Fabrikator abilities for weeks. Jesper had been tentative about it at first, still was as far as Wylan could tell, but Jesper had become set on making the most beautiful metal work he could. It had started as a joke, a way to make Wylan gifts Jesper had said, but by the looks of the key he was clearly getting better at it.

"It's beautiful," Wylan said, handing the key back to Jesper. "On Dawa's ship though, when we were being held prisoner, you'd said that they had done something to them."

"Oh, right." Jesper looked down at the key held in his lap. "Whatever they did to me seemed to have worn off after a while. I've had them back for some time now."

"That's good. Do you know how they did it?"

"No, but I suspect a drug or maybe it was just the concussion they gave me."

"We should figure it out."

"Why?"

"So we know how to avoid it in the future."

Jesper shrugged, still spinning the key in his fingers. "It's not that important if my Grisha abilities do go away..."

"They are important, and you know it. Don't even talk like that. Plus, we might need them to escape here."