Someone nears, and his shoulders tense, a glance over that is full of bared-teeth distrust until he recognises one of the few things he knows, which is that Redvers was kneeling in the water just like him, and his hands are empty. That starting bristle relaxes back, and he looks down, following the other man's look of assessment. For both of their benefits, Marcus peels his hand away from the wound, though it is difficult to see in the layers it had torn through.

Bright fresh red coats his hand, however, shiny as a crimson mirror.

A memory with two layers: you are accosted by a young woman wearing Circle mage robes, who approaches them directly and demands information on someone whose name is no doubt being said, but which cannot be recalled at the moment.

It leads to a second memory, understood to be a few hours previous, in a Circle's Harrowing chamber: another young mage, entranced and undergoing their Harrowing, begins to convulse as their body mutates before your eyes. An Abomination rises from their form, turning on the gathered watching Templars before they descend upon it. You and your brothers in arms act as you've been trained, Silencing and taking your swords to it with ruthless efficiency; this is not the first time you've had to do this, and it won't be the last.

The memory returns briefly to the first vignette, the sight of the woman's face as she awaits the truth, but nothing is said to indicate whether or not she learns of it.

The breath that leaves him is harsher than the last, putting pressure back down over the stab wound at the feeling of it throbbing. He shakes his head as if to clear it of the images clinging to the corners of his skull, tattered without context.

At this stage, the dagger he was holding is pinned negligently to the wall he is leaning near, trapped under the flat of his hand. He does look, then, to the only way out, the gate with the chain, and also the source of the thing everyone wishes to run from.

The look he returns to Ellie is withering, and articulate: don't fucking touch him. He'll figure it out.