As he carefully pried open Brummy’s locked jaws, the razor-sharp canines sliced through his thumbs all the way to the bone. Blood welled and dripped onto the wolf’s fur, but Zane didn’t even flinch. His hands, slick with his own blood, continued to work, obviously worried about using too much strength and snapping Brummy’s bones.
“Stop!” Casimir ordered. “You’re going to sever a tendon!”
“He’s dying! What does it matter if I lose a fang-rotted thumb?”
The raw pain in his voice silenced Casimir, who turned his attention to Koa as he thundered up to us, holding up a glass bottle.
“Goblin Moonshine!”
“Molecular weight 62.07, lethal canine dose 1.5 milliliter per—”
“Math later! Eyeball it, Ko!”
“No! I need to calculate—”
“No time!” Zane roared. “Ko! Now!”
Koa upended the bottle, pouring half the contents down my baby’s throat. Some of it spilled down Brummy’s chin and onto the carpet, and the smell hit me a moment later, so potent that it made my eyes water.
“Enough!” Casimir rumbled in his commander voice. “You’re going to poison him trying to save him from poison!”
For one dreadful moment, no one moved. The only sound was Brummy’s ragged breathing and the soft patter of alcohol and blood dripping from his fur onto the floor. Had we made everything worse? Were we in time?
“Brumster?” Zane whispered, his voice small and broken. His bloodied hand hovered over the dire wolf’s side, afraid to touch, afraid to hope. “Please, buddy.”
Five heartbeats of pure terror. Brummy convulsed, vomited a rainbow slick, then blinked. Once. Twice. His eyes crossed and uncrossed as if he were trying to watch a fly on the end of his nose. Then one rolled toward Zane, pupil swelling like a black hole.
“You havegotto be kidding me,” Casimir whispered.
Brummy sneezed, and a daisy chain of fireballs erupted from his nostrils. Zane collapsed back onto his haunches, his laughter bordering on manic.
“Attaboy, Brum-Brum! Blow snot rockets like Zaddy taught you!”
“Koa, that was far too much!” Casimir massaged his temples. “His fucking blood is probably flammable right now!”
Koa, still holding the half-empty bottle, shrugged.
“Whoops.”
The single word, so utterly my Koko, broke the tension like a dam bursting. A laugh bubbled up from my chest, half-hysterical, and the adrenaline that had been keeping me upright began to ebb, leaving me shaky and weak. I leaned more heavily against Zane, watching the steady rise and fall of Brummy’s breathing.
“Too much or not, it worked!” Zane hugged Brumous’ head, his injured hands smearing blood everywhere. “Told you my boy’s indestructible!”
“Indestructible anddrunk,” Casimir scoffed.
“Who cares? Brummy’s alive! Shaking off death like it was an unwanted bath.” The naked relief on Zane’s face made my heart ache. He looked years younger, his armor stripped away, as he pressed his forehead against Brummy’s, his red hair mingling with charcoal gray fur. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. Got it, Wolfword McFuzzypants?”
Brummy responded by licking a stripe up Zane’s face, from chin to hairline, with a tongue that seemed to have doubled in size and halved in coordination.
“I think that’s a promise.” A watery laugh escaped me.
I touched Brummy’s flank. The unnatural heat had dissipated. His breathing, while uneven, was stronger. The pink-tinged foam stopped coming from his mouth.
“Is he really going to be okay?” I asked, hardly daring to believe it.
Casimir took Brummy’s head between his palms and examined his now-dilated pupils.
“The alcohol should prevent further metabolism of the antifreeze. We’ll need to get fluids into him, run some tests to check kidney function, but…” He paused, his eyes softening as they met mine. “Yes, I think he’ll be okay. Needing to be monitored, but okay.”
