Kit touched her wrist and swore when he felt just how cool she was. "Gentry? You there?" He knelt down and stroked some stray hairs off her face. Her desperate eyes met his. He tilted her face backward to see that her tongue was swollen and tinted green. Visha’s signature poison.
"Why are you touching her?"
He looked up at Visha incredulously. "And why did you poison her?" he asked. "I told you that I had a plan to get all of us out of here. You agreed to it." They’d talked for almost two hours about the trip to the Wilds, how they would empty the bunker of itsrations, load up their brooms, and even the number of years that would have to pass before they returned to Skadra.
"Oh, yes, your brilliant plan," the curly-headed witch said with sarcasm. "What a brilliant way to live life, Kit, fleeing our home which we have rightfully earned. And hiding out in the Wilds with some magic-less girl who's tainted you. If she dies, then you don’t have to pay up that last Favor.”
Kit knew that that was the way it went in the legends, but he fought through his brain fog as he picked up Gentry into his arms. She was shivering. "I owe that Favor becauseyousent me to kill her. We're in the wrong here, Visha. The city's now no longer safe."
"It'll be safe after she dies," she said, pointing at Gentry with a curled lip. "All of our problems go away once she's dead.”
Something in Kit snapped. “You don’t get to decide how we’re going to do this. I’ve always done everything your way, and this time, I’m just asking you to try my way. Now stop your bullshit. Give her the antidote.” He'd used the poison himself to take out their enemies. It wasn't a pleasant way to go out. Gentry's body convulsed in his arms and slapped him across the face with reality.
His heart raced when Visha didn’t answer. "The antidote. Hand it over." His voice grew harder as he stepped near his ex. To his alarm, he watched her hand open and then flex as if she were about to duel him.
"I don't have the antidote with me," she admitted. "But now's the time to choose: her or me, Kit. Ifshedoesn't die, thenIwill. Surely you owe my father more than choosing a helpless little magic-less girl over me.”
Kit focused on the first part. "No antidote?" It went against everything he knew about Visha. She was always prepared. She had to be lying. "This doesn't have to be one of your ultimatums," he said. "We can make this work.”
Visha laughed bitterly and waved a hand at him. “I am not giving up my life as I know it just so that some skank can live hers out. We have built a lot here, baby. Go ahead. Race away. Try to save her. I'll still be here when you give up, and then we can actually come up with arealplan."
Precious seconds ticked by as he set Gentry back down onto the cot and went through Visha’s bags, looking for the tell-tale signs of the blue liquid he needed. She watched with a sniff. "I didn't lie," she said as he crashed all the vials out onto the ground and spread them with a shaking hand. "The poison doesn't even have an antidote."
"You're lying," Kit said, so unbearably angry. But he didn't have time to dwell. He picked Gentry back up into his arms. "I know that you never make anything without an antidote, you selfish, manipulative bitch. I know just where to find it. Samar showed me."
Surprise flickering across her face let him know that he'd hit his mark. And that was all he needed as he levitated Gentry's pack and then his broom into the air. He pulled the hidden lever by one of the floating candles to stop the bunker’s forward motion underneath the sand. It came to a jolting stop, rattling all the pots and pans in the kitchenette.
"Wait," Visha said, stumbling after them, her dark eyes swimming with tears, “it’s been too long. She won’t make it anyway.”
"Don't. I'm not coming back. Ever. We're over, Visha. And if she dies"—he fixed her with a stare—"you'll wish you had never met me."
At last, his ex-girlfriend shrank away and had the gall to look scared. But then she said, "Don't come back to the Jumpers either. We'll be better off without you."
He started the long climb up the ladder, levitating Gentry and all their things alongside him. Visha was screaming now, buthe’d drowned her out. He felt the second she tried to use magic to pull them down. Kit flexed his hand in response, letting a nasty bit of magic escape. He heard Visha yelp as she flew into the bunks below.
"Don't go!" was all he heard as he exited the hatch into the freezing desert air.
twenty-four
Kit
Kit stopped levitating Gentry and caught her as he exited the bunker, rage making the act effortless. He recoiled from how damp and cool her skin was, the pallor of her skin alarming under the red light of the rising morning sun. It cast the sands in crimson. Needing to set up everything for the broom ride, he set her down on those sands, grateful that the sun had yet to make the sand hot, although he couldn't help but wonder if the heat would’ve warmed her skin. As if revived by the sands, Gentry opened her eyes. The vibrance of her emerald eyes stole his breath.
"Sorry, Mom," she murmured, "I got another strike." It was nonsensical, but Kit somehow understood what she meant.
"No, you're here with me, Gentry." He cupped her cheek. "A witch, remember? You hate witches, particularly this one. I tried to kill you." He kept his tone light and jovial.
She instantly frowned. "Go away."
"I can't, not yet. Not until I get you the antidote." He spoke casually, like he wasn’t worried. Visha’s poisons were potent.
Kit grabbed his broom and then gathered Gentry back up into his arms. It was awkward; the seat of his broom was only designed for one. But he propped her up onto his lap, his arm a vice around her waist.
"Careful about giving me a splinter," Gentry lisped at him. "I’ll keep bleeding. It's really gross."
"I think a splinter is the least of your concerns, baby." He took off into the air and was alarmed when the small woman instantly started shivering from the airflow. He kept the broom at a low altitude, zipping across the sands like a hellcat as he read the shapes of the mountain ranges. He estimated an hour and a half flight to get to the Jumper camp. But he pushed himself well past that.
"Stay away from my makeup drawer, sis. It's too expensive," was the last thing Gentry said before losing consciousness. He felt the tension leave her body. If it weren't for the shiver caused by a particularly strong wind gust, Kit would’ve thought she was dead.
