The water wells up and spills over the barrier that now cuts off half of the river, but Salvatore and I simply snag in its hold.
Salvatore glances down, and more vegetation heaves off the shoreline into the water. A path rises up to cushion our feet.
With a brighter laugh than I can ever remember hearing from him, he grabs my elbow and tugs me with him toward the safety of solid ground.
Forty-Five
Elodie
The invigorating effect of sparking with your match only lasts so long.
Hand in hand, Salvatore and I slog through the churning water to the shore. As we heave ourselves out onto the bank, his arms give out.
He slumps over on his side with a whoosh of expelled breath.
“Tore!” I yelp, scrambling over to him.
Fresh blood seeps through the dark hair plastered to his head from the spot where it hit the railing. My mind stutters between the image before me and the memory of another match lying bleeding on the ground three years ago.
No, no, not after all this…
I rip off my other glove and hold my hands over his head. I’m physically exhausted too, but the awakening of my glim has boosted all of my magical strength.
Drawing on every lesson I can remember from our Curative Magic classes, I gather ephemera over his worst wound. I plaster the condensed energy against the broken flesh like a bandage. Then I drape warmth across the rest of his body to ward off shock.
A renewed ache radiates through my joints, but the trickle of Salvatore’s blood slows. I push a little more ephemera into place.
The words stick in my raw throat. “Come on, Tore. We made it. You saved us.”
His eyelids flutter. He peers at me hazily for a moment before a smile I can honestly call sly crosses his lips.
“Tore,” he repeats. “You called me ‘Tore.’ Nobody’s gone with that one before.”
My face flushes through the surge of my relief. I reverted to calling him by the nickname I used for my Salvatore without realizing it.
I blink back the tears that welled up while I tried to heal him. “It just seems… fitting.”
“It’s good. I like it. Better than Sal. Never call me ‘Sal.’”
Despite the worry still squeezed around my gut, my mouth twitches with a smile of my own. He’s just like my Tore that way too.
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
The cooling night air is turning my wet clothes glacial. A shiver wracks my body.
Salvatore grunts in objection. With a clench of his jaw, he shoves himself upright. He yanks off his sodden jacket and tosses it aside. It looks like the cut over his ribs must have been shallow enough to stop bleeding on its own.
He hesitates when he catches sight of the exposed skin of his arms. Matching tattoos curve along his biceps beneath his sleeves: the tails of coiling snakes, it looks like. My Salvatore went with strands of barbed wire.
Across the tan skin of his wrist and the black ink higher up, the cuts I took on my arm earlier gleam red on his. Neither is bleeding badly, but he won’t know how they got there.
He frowns at them but must assume he was battered during his turbulent journey downriver.
His head jerks toward me. “Are you hurt? That scalder with his knife and those stupid tricks…”
He starts running his hands over my sleeves as he asks. I tuck my arms closer to my chest before he can stumble on the severed fabric and shake my head. “I managed to block everything.”
Salvatore’s snarl rumbles from deep in his chest. “When I get my hands on him?—”
