Shit, shit, shit... "Kuronue, I'm here. I'm right here, just like I said I would be. Don't you start hallucinating on me, you hear me?!" he all but yelled, even now mindful of their situation.

He ignored the blood seeping into his clothes as he fished around in his hair for his last plant. Quickly willing it to bloom, he then squeezed the nectar out onto the ward-metal. Acrid fumes rose from the shackle as the nectar ate away at it, slowly freeing his wrist. "It's not your fault," he soothed quietly. "I should have planned better, should have gotten a sturdier chain for the pendant."

He pressed his lips to blood caked hair at the crown of the bat's head. "Never your fault, always mine, you understand me?"