“I have no idea.”
Saul groans.
“I’m going to have to carry him, Sophia. Do you think you can stir the silver?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” No part of me wants to remain in this room, which I realize with a start is in the United States. If Agent Donovan knew I was here, he’d have me strapped to a table in a rehabilitation center in no time. I shiver.
Lifting the staff from its hook, I plunge it into the silver the way I watched Seven do it and try to stir. Nothing happens. It’s like trying to stir concrete. I pour on a little luck and throw my back into it, pushing with my legs. Slowly the staff starts to move. Very slowly. I circle it down and around, the push turning into a pull that reminds me of a rowing machine. I repeat the process—push, push, push, pull, pull, pull. My face breaks into a sweat, but the staff is moving faster now. Again and again, I stir until the silver itself gains momentum, carrying my strokes along with it.
“Now,” Seven says, “concentrate on returning us the way we came.”
I toss the staff aside and bound into the swirling stars, looking back only to confirm that Seven is following me, Saul over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. I race forward, mind picturing the room under the casino. It feels like I’m running into a hard wind. Every step is harder than the last. I’m sure the stars are going to collapse on my head before I can reach the other side when Seven pushes me hard from behind. I dive out of the tunnel and roll across the stone with a pained grunt.
Seven and Saul collapse beside me. The tunnel snaps closed behind us. I lay flat on my back, staring up at the stone ceiling. My head is pounding, and I’m covered in scrapes and scuffs. Seven doesn’t look much better, and Saul is out again, barely breathing.
“What do you think Hearst meant about you taking over the helm?”
Seven taps the back of his head against the stone. “No clue, but it looks like I’ll be visiting my father in Ashgate after all. I have questions, and he’s the only one with answers.”
* * *
Thankthe gods that by the time Seven and I are strong enough to stand, Saul has come to enough to carry some of his own weight. We put his arms around our shoulders and help him through the wards. Seven calls Jericho to pick us up, and we race him to Elderflame Hospital.
It’s late by the time he’s safely in a room. Besides being a mass of bruised flesh, Saul’s got three broken bones: a shin, a clavicle, and an arm. The doctors are able to revive him long enough to tell him he’s safe, and then he passes out again. We stay in the room while they set his bones, then hook him up to an IV drip of saline fortified with liquid luck. Eventually the doctors request we leave so he can rest.
“Is there someone we should call for him?” I ask Seven.
Seven rubs the back of his neck. “His mother. But I’ll have to check with Human Resources for her contact information. Excuse me.” He raises the phone to his ear and then pads toward the privacy of the stairwell.
I stand there, staring through the glass window into Saul’s room, listening to the machine’s beep and acknowledging the level of evil it must have taken to turn a leprechaun the size of Saul into the broken, black-and-blue blood bag in front of me. Gods, he looks like hell. But then we all do. My cuts and scrapes are many and healing slowly.
Still, any of us might be in that bed if things happened differently. Someone might have died. Life is short, even for us fae. I think about Arden then, about how our time together is sifting through our fingers. How things will have to change. How I won’t be able to climb into bed with her like we used to and watch cheesy movies late into the night. I stare and stare at Saul, this man I don’t know well but whom I liked a great deal, who’d guarded me and drove me places and shared about his own simple leprechaun life to make me feel better.
My hands start to shake. All the saliva dries up in my mouth, and my throat tightens. I feel an emotion building in my chest, and I know that if I give in to it, the barbed seed of regret will barrel up my throat. I swallow it down, tears flowing, and make up my mind not to waste a single minute more.
Seven returns, still looking at his phone in his hands. “She’s on her way. I told her we were in an accident. I didn’t know what else to say.”
I launch myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and weeping into his chest.
“Shhh. Shhh. Sophia, what’s wrong. What happened?”
All the words I want to say get twisted up in my brain, and the only thing that will come out is “I’m so tired.”
He rubs my back. “Of course you are. We need to eat and rest. We haven’t had anything since breakfast, and it’s almost eight o’clock.”
That must be why I’m not healing. I’m exhausted and hungry. But what I’m feeling right now is far more than all that.
Seven tucks my hair behind my ear. “Let’s go back to my place and I’ll fix you something.”
I shake my head, clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping me from drowning. “No.”
“No?”
He takes me gently by the shoulders and eases me off him so he can see my tearstained face. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a nurse give us a judgmental look, but I don’t care. I might never let go of Seven again.
“Where doyouwant to go?” he asks me. “I’ll take you anywhere. We can go to River’s or one of the restaurants in Elderflame. Wherever you want. I’ll clear the place out if you want me to.”
I take a deep breath and look him in the eye. “I want to go to my parents’ house, and after we eat, I want to tell them the truth.”
