“This is not what I meant by adventure!” she yelled to no one in particular—and with a hiss and a pop, the dome evaporated.
She stumbled into the storm it had been holding at bay. When she got herself turned around, expecting to find spells rushing at her, she discovered their attackers were trapped—caught in an even smaller dome. A red one. She laughed in nervous relief: Holes notwithstanding, Hartgrave’s wall hadn’t warped—he’d altered it on purpose.
The next second, he barreled into her.
“Be calm,” he said in a rasp that proved he hadn’t feigned his condition. “Now.”
The hit squadders—yelling bloody murder—pummeled his altered spell. Already, new scorch marks formed. She wanted to shout:Calm? Calm?!
He grabbed her right hand with palsied fingers. Oh, thepain. “I’m not”—he coughed—“leaving without you.”
“All right.” She expelled a breath through gritted teeth. “All right. Calm.”
The sensation where they touched eased from terrible to merely bad.
“Focus.” He fell to his knees in the snow, pulling her with him. “You can do it, I have faith in you ...”
Impossible to ignore the shouted threats, but she tried. Calm. Calm as a spring breeze or a silvery lake or a snowy night, a snowy night with absolutely no murderous magic-users.
Hartgrave dropped her hand, threw his arms around her and—
What happened next was the strangest sensation. Nothing—that was what it felt like. Pure nothing.
The damp chill of snow disappeared. The pressure of his fingers dissolved. The sound of infuriated killers receded to a silence so total, the idea of noise was ridiculous.
When the world rushed back in the form of what appeared to her dazed eyes to be a room, it was too much. She fell forward on her hands, head spinning.
Beside her, Hartgrave was coughing hard enough to dislodge a rib. When the fit subsided, he took a rattling breath and said with hoarse finality:“Thosewere wizards.”
11
Coming to an Understanding
A full minute passed before she could open her eyes and lift her head. They’d landed in Hartgrave’s hidden room. He was pushing the door shut, an effort that seemed to be the final straw, because he then swayed and fell.
She staggered over to him. His eyes were screwed shut, his teeth clenched, face a subtle shade of gray. A horrible thought gripping her, she reached for his hand—and felt nothing but ice-cold skin, not even a low hum, despite how worked up she was.
“Hartgrave ...” Her voice trembled. “Are you all right?”
He cracked open one eye. “Do I”—he coughed—“lookall right?”
“No,” she snapped, anxiety making her testy. “You looked like you could be dead, and I was trying to rule that out.”
“Death,” he said, pausing to breathe with effort, “might be preferable.”
Probably a good sign that he had energy for sarcasm.
“Are we safe here?” She looked at the door. “They can’t follow us?”
“They’ve no way”—he wheezed—“of knowing where we went.”
He tugged his still-beeping phone out of his pocket and silenced it with shaking fingers. It took three attempts.
She bit her lip. “Any point going to the emergency room?”
He shook his head.
“At least let me get you to bed, then,” she said, taking his hands. But despite both their efforts, he couldn’t get up.
