Sabine arced her back and whimpered the rest of her breath out from the renewed burning. She might have tried to block out more, but just as those around her were talking, the sound of turning paper caught her attention. She peered her tear-soaked eyes up and slowly lifted her brow. She recognised the book in Do'Rhajul's hands. Ahnasha had succeeded after all. She had to do something now. She could not leave her magic to some impossible point where they would hypothetically stop torturing her.

She turned her swollen eyes left and right. A movement from Arinette nudged the end of the staff to push against her. Her gaze went to the Staff of Magnus. Her arms were asleep, but her magic was not. All she needed to do was touch it. And touch Arinette. It was now or never.

Sabine's face turned from fear to a clenched strain. She pressed her lips together. Her brow pushed down on her eyes. She wrinkled her nose. Her arm muscles bulged. She had intended to try and wrench the stake from its place in the tree. Instead, she felt her palms stinging. They were sliding up the stake. She clenched her eyes and teeth and pushed further. Tiny sounds of pain came out of her throat. Blood flowed down her arms to coat the dry brown marks that the previous bleeding had already left.

She just needed a few moments. The splinters dug into her hands, piece by piece. Near the end of it, she could not hold back a scream akin to the other pain she had been feeling. Then again, this was far less in comparison.

Her hands glowed a bright green. Swirling motes gathered around the stake and Sabine's fingers. With a spatter of bright blood, Sabine all but fell onto Arinette, barely landing her bloody hands on her shoulder and thoroughly staining her clothing. Her spell discharged. Arinette felt her joints lock up with a paralysis spell twelve hours in the making.

For lack of any manual dexterity, Sabine slung her arms around the Staff of Magnus and threw the helpless Arinette from its grip onto the earth below. Sabine stumbled, nude, scarred, and burnt, into a wide stance. She threatened away any advances from the rest of the team by pointing the staff at them. She drew from the staff and felt its power. She immediately put it to use.

Sabine's entire body shimmered with a solar light. The world darkened in her corona until she resembled Meridia herself. To Sabine, it was merely a restoration spell wrought of brute magical power. Feeling returned to her arms. Her wounds had closed to perfection. She gripped the staff properly with her hands. However, only her physical pain had melted in the light. She looked across the team with her previous pain mixed with growing fury.

What she shouted at the top of her lungs was perhaps not what the others might have expected. Sabine screamed at Do'Rhajul. "KEEP READING!"

Arinette was not going to be moving for a while yet. And she was in no position to stop Sabine paralysing her over and again until they were done.