[It takes one and a half seconds for Paul to disentangle himself, using his leverage on the choir's wrist to pull them into a twisting hip throw that pulls the chain, jerking, sucking, from his arm. It takes another nine for him to make it through the door, taking the steps two at a time to that luminous, warming threshold where he hangs half-suspended between waking and dreaming for an impossible timelessness to be sure Lycka comes through with him, clutching at his nerve-scattered arm with that same fierce, pain-tightened smile.

It only fades when he sees the figure standing still, impassive, at the base of the stairs, unmoved by -

- and then Paul's eyes open, sea-green and blinking at moonlight, and he looks up at Lazarus with half-dazed amazement, other thoughts forgotten. There are cool-feeling fingers on his forehead, and his right hand reaches up towards them tentatively.]

Sodium channel blocker. [His voice is thinned, somehow, but he feels otherwise unharmed, the illusory toxin no more than a sense-memory.] Paralysis in response to unexpected attack vector - a jellyfish? But it felt -

[He catches himself short, takes in a breath, his smile warm and shaken.]

It worked. Are you all right?