Cathy let go of my hand and smiled at me. "I'm going to go over there and say hi to Roma and Cassie. And then hug Tanni once she’s out of her science trance."
"Of course." I watched her walk away, then joined Bran. "What do you need from us?" he asked.
Tanni looked away from the laptop and rubbed her hands together. "Unfortunately, the only option now is testing. We can't test on animals because I can't get any of them to catch the virus."
"We have a few goblins in Dream who are pretty far gone," Bran said. We all gave a collective sigh on their behalf, as was the norm for our culture. When someone spoke of the heavily afflicted, we took a half second and gave them a moment of respect. It could've happened to us at any point. He continued, "Some of them would rather risk the antidote going wrong than live another day with their deformities.”
Tanni nodded. "If you could bring them here, I can start the first trials. We'll have to wait and see if it works, though. I'm not completely sure how long it will take, but based on the blood samples testing we've done, I think it will be swift."
Bran nodded and started talking logistics with Tanni as I wandered around the lab, trying to make sense of everything going on around me. There were so many beakers, a fridge full of blood samples, and all kinds of scientific equipment. I made my way closer to Tanni, and as I peered around her table, close to the woman herself, it all made sense. "Ahh," I said, inhaling deeply. "That's how you got this done so quickly. Why didn't you tell us you've got healing magic?"
Bran scrunched up his nose and moved closer. After a moment, he raised his brows and shook his head, indicating he couldn’t feel it.
Rissa inhaled deeply. "I didn't sense it at all until now. It's sneaky, it just wraps itself in whatever magic’s around and hides. Nice trick."
I shrugged. "I'm pretty good at sniffing out magic."
Bran opened the way back to Dream and both Rissa and I winced as our noses stung for a moment with the potent magic. He gave me a sideways grin as he passed into the other realm.
I’d have to find a way to get back for this of course. It might take thought.
“How long until he’s back?” Andromeda asked.
“Minutes to hours,” Rissa answered. “Probably closer to minutes, though. The sick are probably waiting near the barrier, so he just needs to grab a few and come back.”
She was trying to look casual, but the tension in my body echoed in my second’s. Both of us hoped this would work—and feared our hope was the buildup to a cruel joke by fate.
It ended up taking the better part of the night. I’d seated myself, waiting, and Cathy sat in the next chair leaning her head against my shoulder.
"Sorry it took so long," he said as they walked through the door. "I had to have them draw straws. They all wanted to come."
Cathy's mouth opened in a big yawn that I had to fight not to mimic. It was nearly dawn, and the whole room was feeling it. Even with our excitement and nervousness, it was still hard not to nod off. Sleep was necessary even for shifters and goblins.
The deformed goblin, Noah, sat in a chair in the corner and grimaced as Tanni efficiently jabbed a needle in his arm. "Now we wait," she said with a pregnant pause.
We all found uncomfortable spots around the lab to sit and wait. When it seemed like everyone was going to drop off asleep, I stood and pulled a deck of cards out of my pocket. "Pick a card, any card." I held them in front of Cathy's face and grinned down at her.
Her eyes brightened, losing some of the sleepiness. She reached out and chose a card. "Study it, show everyone else, then put it back." She played along brilliantly, showing the waiting people her card, then slipping it back into the deck. I did the counting trick that would tell me exactly which card she'd put back in my hand, pulled it back out of the deck, and faced my impromptu audience. "Is your card the Queen of Hearts?" I asked triumphantly.
"Er." Cathy gave me a wry look. "No."
"Oh." Crap. Something had gone wrong. I recounted and cut the deck again. "The Ace of Spades?"
With her hand in front of her lips, she giggled. "No, sorry."
As a last resort, I sprayed the deck all over the room. "Well, forget that then." I pulled another deck out of another pocket and held it up. "Anybody for Rummy?"
Bran laughed. “Only if you promise not to cheat.”
“Well, if you’re going to take all the challenges out of it…” I let the words trail off.
“I think he wants a yes or no,” Cathy stage whispered.
“Fine. No cheating.”
“Then yes!” Bran grinned at me.
We spent the next hour playing cards. I produced one more deck and Tanni had one there, too, so soon we had a round-robin of rummy games going.
