“We need to stop the bleeding,” Eli tries, voice low and calm. “Please.”
I hiss, showing my own incisors, an immense disrespect, but I need to get these High Fae away from me. I hate them, I hate all of them, and I would rather die than—
I’m gazing at the white ceiling, the rug against my back. Before I can comprehend what’s happening, a warm hand clasps over my wound.
“Just a moment,” Eli says, his face coming into view. The fire in my neck and arm eases, cools.
“Lila.” Then he’s shifting me against another body, a toned arm supporting me.
“You’re okay,” Lila whispers, resting my head against her shoulder. I cry at the sound of her voice, cry harder when she dabs a napkin on my forehead and harder still when I realize that Lila is becoming my friend. She cradles me, and if I had the strength, I’d hug her back.
Eli leans over Dominik, who sputters for breath.
“Leave him,” Maxian grits out through a clenched jaw, pacing.
“I’ll take him back to Illusion,” the executioner offers, eyeing a wall sconce that rattles with the plane before crashing to the floor.
“Leave. Him.”
“Max,” Eli cuts in, grabbing Dominik’s face. “Max, something else is wrong. He’s not breathing.”
Eli yanks Dominik up from his hands and knees. The fae’s face is gray, lips an eerie blue. He wheezes for breath that won’t come.
Maxian stops. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”
Dominik falls onto his back, convulsing. Eli reaches forward, turning him on his side as the fae seizes, prying open his mouth.
“A reaction to overexerting his magic?” Death asks.
“No, this is physical,” the Head of Healing states, ripping open Dominik’s shirt. Hives break across his flesh from mouth to fingertips. “Something is killing him.”
“Poison?” the king asks.
“I’m not sure.” Eli runs his hands along Dominik’s spine. “I can’t cure it if I don’t know the source.”
The High Fae swing their attention to me, still in Lila’s arms. We both shiver as the executioner stalks toward us.
“What did you do?” he demands.
When Dominik inhales, it sounds like a broken whistle.
Eli forms a circle with one hand and presses it over the heir’s mouth, wind rushing past my ear.
“Airways are closing,” he says. “We need answers now.”
Reign magic seizes me.
“What happened to Dominik?” the king asks. My tongue prickles, yanks forward as if someone has reached into my mouth and grabbed it. A new kind of magic I have yet to experience, Reign magic of the mind. The sentence flies from my mouth.
“I don’t know,” I gasp.
“What poison did you use?” Maxian bellows, the room shaking. My tongue pinches, mouth forced open again.
“None.”
“Max, has this happened before?” Eli demands.
“What?”
