“I have a friend,” he says, words slurring at the edges, poison threading through his voice. “But she’s… miles away. I can’t apparate us through this. Not like this.”
“Who? Where?” I push, cupping his face to force his gaze on mine. Sweat beads on his brow; his pupils shrink, dilate, shrink again.
He looks at me like he’s not sure I’m real.
“When did I find you again?” he murmurs, breath hitching. “Gods, you’re...when did I-?”
“Ares, focus.” My hands grip his cheeks tighter, the pads of my thumbs brushing against his cheekbones. “What friend? Give me something.”
He smiles faintly, drunken and distant.
“I have friends,” he insists. “Liam. You. Althea-”
“Althea?” I latch onto the name, desperate. “Althea who?”
“Althea Collins,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “You already know that.”
I don’t. But it’s all I have.
The creature screeches, a hideous, warping sound, and the brush to our left shudders violently. A shadow passes in front of our hiding place.
It’s now or never.
I rip off my sweater, pressing it hard against Ares’s bleeding side. He groans, eyes rolling back for a moment before he tightens his hold around my wrist, anchoring himself to the only thing not spinning out of control.
“Ares, stay with me,” I whisper, even as my wand hand begins to shake uncontrollably.
The creature inhales deeply, sniffing the air.
“I smell his blood.”
Its voice slithers over my skin like a curse.
I seal my eyes shut and focus on the name, his voice saying it, the odd confidence in the way he repeatedyou already know that, the slight emphasis, the rhythm, the urgency hidden inside it.
Althea Collins.
Althea Collins.
Althea Collins.
My wand thrums in my hand. My pulse races. Magic coils in my chest, pulsing outward through every trembling inch of my body.
The ground shakes beside us.
The creature prowls closer.
It speaks again, a whisper thick with anticipation.
“I’m going to find you, little Shadeborne.”
I taste iron on my tongue as I channel every shred of magic I have into the apparition.
Ares’s eyes crack open only slightly, the barest sliver of awareness cutting through the haze overtaking him. His gaze drifts over my face, unfocused but desperate, as though he’s trying to memorize the shape of me before something darker pulls him under. My hands won’t stop shaking against his cheeks, the panic in my veins loud enough to drown out everything else. His skin is cold now, colder than fear should allow, and the poisoned veins around the gash on his side throb with a color that doesn’t belong on any living thing. I know I’m running out of time, even if he can’t tell me that outright.
I force myself to inhale, to steady my breath long enough to gather the magic burning behind my ribs. His weight collapses fully into me when I shift closer, his arm slipping uselessly from around my waist. I gather him to me, throattight, eyes stinging. This spell can go wrong in a thousand different ways, and I have never attempted it on my own. But there is no choice left to debate, no time left to waste. My voice is barely more than a ragged whisper as I anchor myself in place.
“Althea Collins.”
