“I’ll use my magic to keep you aloft if I have to,” he said. “And to steer you, if it comes to that. But this way, we can at least gothrough separately. I don’t trust any spell I might use to make you invisible would survive the shift in dimensions––”
“We won’t end up in the middle of the party?” I blurted.
He looked at me. “No.”
He sounded confident.
I couldn’t think well enough to decide if that confidence was real.
He helped me turn towards the wings, and before I could try to find either of my primals, the first set rose and began entwining with my magic, weaving into the muscles of my shoulders and around my spine. I stood there, feeling unbearably top-heavy and back-heavy, gripping the Pan statue with both hands as Bones easily righted and attached his own set of wings.
The bright gold feathers made his eyes stand out even more. I saw a curl of that fire in his irises again and blinked. By the time I’d refocused, it was gone.
“Okay.” He held out his hand, and I took it without thought. He brought both of us over to a tall gap in the crenelated parapet. I gripped the side of the wall nearest to me, and fought to breathe. I turned to Bones, realizing he’d put me in front of him.
I was considering arguing with him again, when a loud SCREECH from overhead drew my eyes straight up. The blood-red eyes and massive body of the blue-green snake monster looked very different hovering directly over us. Its wings looked a lot larger. Its mouth looked a lot bigger. It screeched at us again, and fire tunneled out of its mouth, not quite reaching us, but heating my skin enough that I stumbled backwards––
––and off the parapet altogether.
I tumbled through the freezing air, still wearing the dress I’d completely forgotten about, my long hair, which I’d unwisely leftdown for the night, blinding my eyes. I managed to think at my primal that I didn’t want to die.
My magical or muscle memory took over somewhere in that.
That, or Bones did.
The gold wings spread.
They caught me, midair, then pulled me into a smooth, ascending curve of flight. My stomach absolutely hated it. I might have vomited right there, in the air, but enough of my adrenaline was engaged by then, my mind cleared marginally. Once I’d managed to get my hair mostly out of my face and my wings leveled, I saw myself soar over the river, which I was now only maybe thirty or so feet above.
None of this is real,some part of me kept repeating.
It couldn’t possibly be real.
That, or we’d never left Malcroix, and Forsooth’s playground was just some kind of chimaeric skin over every real brick, stone, window, tree, and corridor, which meant Forsooth had likely emptied the entire campus to make his party.
I felt the shift a bare breath before I was upon it.
I barely had time to throw up my arms before I hit into it.
I let out a choked gasp, then fell straight down, and it was dark and air rushed up at me. It felt different though, than it had from that tower. For the first time, I realized how gentle the fall had been in Forsooth’s world. Here, the fall felt sharp, and the air smelled completely different. Instead of honey and roses and the faint whiff of lavender, here it smelled like water, grass, mulch, and stone, and everything was wet and cold.
Something caught me, right before I would have hit the ground.
I floated down the last handful of feet, and something set me on the ground so softly, I would have stayed upright if my body wasn’t still battling whatever drugs coursed through my system.As it was, I sank to my knees in grass over two feet tall. The grass was wet and freezing cold, but I didn’t try to get up.
I knelt there on my hands and knees, breathing hard, fighting to control the hammering of my heart. I think some of that must’ve been an echo of panic, even shock. Whatever it was, it felt more like a panic attack than any form of exertion.
It had finally hit me, through that haze of adrenaline and intoxicants, that Graham Strangemore had drugged me, in addition to attacking me. I’d known that, of course, obviously I’d known both things, but it hadn’t really penetrated beyond the initial shock. Strangemore dosed me with something, either in the second drink he handed me, or in both of them.
I guessed both of them, since I still seemed to be getting worse, not better.
Which raised a host of other questions, some of them about that costume party the year before. Had it been my aunt who’d dosed me that time, either? Or had she merely taken advantage of a drug I’d already been given? It’s not like she couldn’t have overpowered me magically. She’d managed to knock Bones out.
Why wouldn’t she just do the same to me?
A hand wrapped around my bare arm, and pulled me firmly to my feet.
I let it, not even looking at him until he had me upright.
