“Oh. Oh dear,” someone said.
Lux couldn’t tell if the tremors were inside or out, but her vision warped. Things moved across her pupils. “Wait. It’s too much,” she seethed.
Corvin only squeezed her hand tighter.
“This is not good news.”
Lux opened her mouth; she practically panted. She could feel the pressure of fingers on her temples but didn’t know what they did. “Please,” she begged. “How much longer?”
“Just…a little…ahh. There. That’s it.”
The pressure left her forehead, and her veins stopped rioting at once. The pulsing remained elsewhere, but even that eddied with the next few beats of her heart. Lux allowed her eyes to fall closed, her hand to grow limp. She felt Corvin pull away.
“Disconcerting?” she said, low and murderous.
“Do you need a jolt?” said the healer. His voice, at least, had returned to its normal distance. “I keep a fresh carafe in my workroom.”
“A jolt? That feels like what just happened!” Her eyes flew open, and in her next breath, her legs swung around to sit. Her wounded toe dangled, bandaged and throbbing. “You need to warn people beforehand. I wasn’t at all prepared!”
Her entire chesthurt.Her time in the mansion’s underground had left scars she hadn’t fully realized until now. To be beneath someone’s brilliance without means of escape… Her eyes welled with tears. She flung her hands up to stifle them.
“Would you still have done it?” he said.
“It depends if it worked.” She heaved more slow breaths and then lowered her hands. “Well?”
Artemis inclined his head. “It worked precisely as it should, Ms. Thorn.” He held a book out by either cover, its pages exposed to her. It revealed a figure, bent on their knees, a noxious cloud billowing from their head. A description she couldn’t make out had been transcribed beneath it. “Mania Malus.Or rather, the madness of brilliance. Quite advanced, too, considering your hallucinations. I find myself dreadfully intrigued.”
Lux heard Corvin’s sharp inhale before losing her hearing entirely. A terrible whooshing sound had replaced all else. The young collector came around the table, his hand trailing along her frozen arm. When he stood in front of her, she stared up at him. She didn’t know what he saw. Only that his face fell afterward. He said something, but she couldn’t hear it. He slumped onto the healer’s stool. His head dropped into his hands.
Lux noticed her vision tunneling.What an odd thing.She reached out to steady herself against toppling forward, but her fingers were numb. Her feet, too, in fact.
“I need... I’m…” she mumbled, and her lips tingled where they touched.You cannot faint here,she admonished herself.You will not—
“Breathe with me,”echoed a memory. But it came too late.
Lux slumped forward as her vision went dark.
Chapter twenty-two
Coldpressedagainstherforehead. Her neck. Lux blinked awake. Her head throbbed, and it took too long to focus. When she finally did, she stared blearily at Corvin, watching as he adjusted his gloves.
“Blessed Saints. You fainted,” he said.
Lux blew out a weak breath in reply.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded from her place on the floor.
Corvin gripped her beneath the arms, and she leveraged herself against him, pulling against his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, as hot now as she was cold before. The flush swept her entire body. She refused to meet his eyes.
A steaming mug was shoved into her hands. Lux stared down at it. “Drink the coffee, Ms. Thorn,” said Artemis, then he clinked his own cup against hers and sipped. “My apologies over my abrupt delivery of your diagnosis. I spend so much of my time now experimenting and studying. So many books, you’llunderstand; not even with all the time in the world, could I accomplish everything I want. Still, I should have been more tactful.”
Lux didn’t look at him. Instead, she leaned against the table behind her and stared into the mug of brown liquid. She didn’t mind the smell, but it looked a concerning color. She lifted the cup to her lips and drank.
Her face twisted into a grimace. “Ugh! It’s bitter.”
“It won’t jolt you enough if it’s had any other way.”
