“Another minute of her complaining about her business and how no one respects her, and I’d lose my entire damn mind,” Kit rasps.
Pushing my hair out of my face, I use the wall to help me get to my feet. The sorceress is now clutching her throat, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water before her face twists into a mask of fury.
Raising her hands, she grabs one of the bottles of black sludge and raises it to her lips before swallowing down the liquid.
“You think you can do anything against me?” she crows, panting with a feral gleam in her eyes. “You can’t do a single thing when I have pure, liquid power.”
Now that I’ve got air back in my lungs, I’m ready for a second attempt at tackling her. I grab my sealskin from the box and wrap it around my shoulders, waiting for the familiar warmth of transforminginto Noush. We’re surprisingly quick on land and Noush also has the benefit of a strong jaw and razor-sharp teeth.
... but nothing happens.
And then for the second time in minutes, all the air gets sucked from my lungs. I grasp at my throat as a horrible choking sound fills the air.
Across the room, Aster and Kit are both scrabbling around with their eyes bulging as they struggle to breathe.
She’s choking us.
I sink back to the floor in panic, trying desperately to suck in oxygen. My vision’s already going spotty at the edges as I crawl toward Kit and Aster, the fear on their faces matching my own.
All the strength seems to go out of me as I clutch my skin closer to me and my legs collapse. I’m vaguely aware of the prickling pain in my limbs, but it feels very far away. A rumbling starts up beneath me, and I use the last of my energy to look up just as the wall explodes.
Chapter 36
Reva
When I come to, someone is holding my hand.
My brain sleepily supplies that it’s probably Aster and I’ll wake up to his face far too close while he’s watching me sleep with a dopey smile on his face.
I shift slightly, and it’s only when I’m rudely introduced to the aches all over my body and my pounding head that I remember. I must have blacked out in the Deadwood Cove labs, so where am I now?
My eyes flutter open, squinting against the light that seems far too bright and into a face I was afraid I might not see again.
“Kit?”
“Morning, sweetheart.”
There’s a rhythmic thumping from somewhere above us, and it’s freezing cold, despite the mountain of blankets I’m piled under.
I stare up into Kit’s warm eyes as he smiles down at me, and I can barely catch my breath. “You’re all right?”
He reaches out to cup my cheek, running his thumb over my jaw with enough reverence to leave my heart pounding. “None the worse for wear, thankfully. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty fucking ropey,” I croak, then peer around at the massive basket we’re seated inside. Through a gap just above Kit’s head, I can just make out two great wings flapping.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Unconscious,” he corrects me softly. “Almost three days. You woke up briefly but didn’t seem to be aware of what was going on. You got hit on the head pretty hard.”
I suck in a sharp breath. Three days? That cannot be right.
Patting the back of my head, I find a thick layer of dressing just under my mass of hair.
“Three days? Seriously?”
He nods gravely and I struggle to sit up. That explains why I feel so odd and my mouth feels so dry.
“Where are we going? What happened? The gryphon—”
