Imight’ve passed out. I’m pretty sure I did pass out.
Something in my magic or consciousness definitely dipped, leaving me in a mindless limbo once the adrenaline left my body, which happened not long after Bones picked me up. I felt strange about that. I felt like I should be fighting harder to stay alert.
I had no luck with it whatsoever until the first shock of cold air hit me.
I sucked in a breath, and lifted my head off his chest reluctantly.
Every muscle in my body protested at the slightest attempt to clench or move any one of them. I looked blearily around at the dark, nighttime world, and my confusion deepened.
“Are we… on the roof?” I asked.
I’d just assumed he’d take me where he’d instructed me to go. He’d told me to go downstairs and leave the castle. He’d told me to go outside, to say… something. He’d given me some phrase to get myself back to the real world.
Up here, everything looked even more fantastical than it had when I’d been walking with Strangemore through the alteredgardens by the lake. I could see people-sized figures flying through the air on golden wings, darting around a much larger beast.
The monster itself looked like a giant, blue-green snake, writhing underneath too-small, leathery wings. It exhaled plumes of fire, illuminating the night sky directly overhead.
“We have to do this fast,” Bones muttered. “Before that thing comes back.”
I glanced up at him and realized he was following the same creature with his eyes. But whatever it was, Forsooth had created it, hadn’t he?
It wouldn’t actually hurt us, would it?
Bones grunted. “He’s put a number of real obstacles throughout this whole fucked-up playground of his,” he grunted under his breath. “I’m not exactly in the mood to deal with whatever it would look like to fight that thing right now, whether I get some kind of present at the end or not.”
He was setting me down on my feet as he spoke.
He put me down next to a life-sized statue of a faun, or maybe the god, Pan. I gripped hold of it immediately to stay upright, but still barely managed to remain on my feet. I stared down at the cloven hooves and woolly legs, and found myself flashing back to the terrace of the real Malcroix Mansion, where Bones had stood, painted in gold, his body magicked to hide the scars I’d seen all over his upper torso.
As the real Bones came back into my line of sight, I blinked, and the image vanished.
He was holding wings. Two sets of wings.
“I can’t,” I protested.
Something about the adrenaline leaving my system made me feel simultaneously like I might be sick from the hangover it left behind, and a lot less in control of my body. I could barely keep my eyes open. I could barely clench my hands.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “We need to pass through the membrane that way.”
He pointed in the direction of the snaking river, which didn’t look like the Faerie, but followed a similar-enough track that I found myself orienting around it anyway.
I shook my head again. “I can’t.”
He exhaled in frustration. “I have no idea where it will let us out,” he said. “It won’t be the middle of the damned party, at least, but I can’t guarantee there won’t be witnesses who matter. I can’t fly through it holding you, Shadow. You do it this way, or I carry you back down part of the stairs, and you leave the castle on your own.”
I bit my lip. My mind dipped violently when I closed my eyes, so I jerked them open. I really felt like I might vomit. The idea of throwing myself off the tower roof wearing the massive, metallic-gold wings he’d just tossed at my feet didn’t help my stomach at all. But I could dimly comprehend the important parts of what he was saying.
It was this, or I go back alone.
Back to the party. Alone.
I could maybe find Miranda or Jolie, but that meant explaining this. It meant possibly running into Graham Strangemore, and whatever he might be telling people already. It meant possibly getting found by Voltaire, Scarpen, Maskey, or someone else.
No. I definitely couldn’t do that.
The wings would be better.
I struggled to get back to my feet, realizing only then that I’d slid down the statue to my knees. Before I could manage it on my own, Bones wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me up, carefully, like before.
