For the person folded up in Gideon’s arms seemed a her. It was a slender young thing whose mouth was a brilliant red with blood. Her dress was a frivolous concoction of seafoam green frills, the blood on it startling against such a backdrop. Her skin seemed transparent—horribly transparent, with the veins at her hands and the sides of her temples a visible cluster of mauve branches and stems. Her eyes fluttered open: they were huge and blue, with velvety brown lashes. The girl coughed up a clot, which ruined the tableau, and those big blue eyes widened in dismay.
