There it was, a confirmation! The book that he had seen the reference in had been old and quite faded, and he had barely been able to make out the name of the place and the fact that the entire forest had a connection to blood. But Avis’ words confirmed it - the forest did exist, recently enough for her to know it, and it did have an active tie to blood of some kind! She seemed hesitant to talk about it though, much like everyone else he had tried talking to about the place.

No, he would not force her to join him on his exploration. But he felt a pull there, an urge to go there and explore what was happening. When he'd first read the text - and that had been strange, as he was fairly certain he didn't know the language it was written in, a thought that disappeared into the back of his mind as soon as he had it without his control - there had been a strange reticence. But then, one of the miners had told him, when he brought it up at the tavern one night, that ‘even though the Witch is dead, is still a right unnatural place. An’ that's all Ah’ll say on th’ matter, Alchemist.’. When he heard that, the apprehension about traveling there had been replaced for a moment by glee, which faded and then the pull came.

Nevin’s eyes shot downwards when she presented her arms to him to check to see if her metal cuff was still there, and he felt his eyebrows raise in shock. It wasn't - it had been replaced by manacles and a faded leather wrap. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he processed that fact, the connection could be removed by removing her cuff. That was important to know.

“No, it's been… Removed and replaced. " He had thought the cuff just a symbol of her still being… subjected to that man’s whims, but that it was actually what kept them in contact… His eyes widened. Vitruvion seemed like a possessive individual, and he was probably going to be pissed that Avis had been missing for who knows how long. That was when she dragged one claw along her arm, bright red blood welling up behind the tip.

Nevin suppressed a shiver as his magic began to sing to him, sweet sweet exultation and promises of everything he could do with her blood, all the possibilities that he knew of and the hidden secrets sure to lie trapped inside the scarlet life fluid. Of all the blood that he had worked with since becoming what he was, hers made his skin sing the most enticing melody.

He ruthlessly squashed that, focusing on the fact that getting out of here meant one step towards finding out just where the person that had placed a bounty on him was, and one step closer to Lindequalme. With a grimace he waited until Avid had bled enough to form a dagger - the smaller of the tools needed for this. When there was enough - just barely enough - he reached out and twisted his magic around her blood, ignoring the way the lines on his outstretched hand began to glow brighter, a warm cherry red in the dark of the cell.

The blood that had collected on her arm and on the floor beneath it flowed into the air under Nevin’s hand, shaping under the guidance of his will into a short, stout dagger with a thick blade and a hilt with almost no cross guard to speak of. He grasped the dark red hilt as soon as it had finished forming, ignoring the jolt of satisfaction that ran through him as he touched the blood-crafted object, and swiftly gripped the bottom of his cut shirt. With one smooth motion he sliced upwards, separating a long strip of the fabric that he then cut loose.

“Avis, I'm binding your wound first. You're the better fighter of the two of us, can't have you getting weak due to too much bloodloss.” Moving quickly he went to wrap up her arm to stifle the blood falling from her.