"I don't think he's in danger of dying," said Geoff, "but he'll need to be moved to a safe place, and I will treat the bump on his head from the fall."
Smithson came over with something to put the cups in, and they carried them back to the bar for quarantining with the rest. "I haven't done the spells Alex does," said Julian, "but I can try something similar."
He'd seen Alex do a simple preservation charm a dozen times, so he shoved away his feelings of inadequacy and pulled together his magic, knowing it was changed from back when he'd been able to merely feel and affect plants and nothing else. The Source wanted him doing regular magic, too, and Julian was determined not to fail it or Alex.
He whispered softly at the two cups, "Keep yourselves just as you are, preserve this state, don't change, don't change, that's it."
He could feel and even hear, a little, as the magic settled over them, different than Alex's but still, he hoped, effective.
"All right, let's get Alex to a couch," said Julian. The comfortable furniture was mostly around the edges of the large den now, but people were eager to give up their spots so that Alex could be laid out.
"From what I remember," said Julian quietly, for Geoff's ears only, "he'll be sick as a dog once he wakes, but the only real danger is the same as Winterson, heartbeat slowing to a stop."
"I'll monitor him," said Geoff.
Julian turned and surveyed the room, trying to remember who they'd passed in the hallway, or who might have had better slight-of-hand than expected in the parlour. It felt like everyone who wasn't here had been by their table, and everyone who wasn't in either of those categories had been in the hallway. Halliwell and Knapweed were both close enough to maybe get to them, though the former had brushed them off quite handily while the latter had had her hands busy with cards. They'd seen Periwig after their drinks were empty, but he couldn't remember if Berkelshire had been by to theorise about the servants before or after they'd finished their drinks.
Without Alex, Julian felt adrift in a sea full of enemies, with his most precious husband to protect and nothing safe to eat or drink.
Chapter 20
Alex knew he wasn't where he had been, but he also wasn't sure where he was. He could still feel Julian, distantly, as though a great gulf separated them, though he could also somehow tell it was temporary. That this, whatever it was, was just for him and not for his husband.
Alex looked around, seeing trees and bracken, grass and flowers, a forest built of whimsy and darkness, each shadow reaching a little too far, too wrong, while each plant was a little brighter and more friendly-shaped than the real-world equivalents. As he watched, a single fat bumblebee flew to one of the flowers and stuck its face into its centre, legs hanging out as it fed on nectar.
"I have no idea what any of this means," said Alex aloud, feeling his ears pop as though he'd been muffled. Suddenly he could hear other bees, birds, and small animals all around him, all the life of a forest moving just out of sight.
He tried to listen to the magic, too, but his senses wouldn't flip for him. He was stuck in the mundanity of this strange world, and he didn't know if he liked it.
A strange elf came into the glade and walked right up to Alex.
"Do you know what's going on?" asked Alex.
"You're on a belladonna trip," said the elf helpfully. "It won't last long, but I can give you one revelation unrelated to the murders."
"Figures," grumbled Alex, but he took a deep breath and asked instead, "How do we keep serving the Source without becoming so tied that we can't leave the grounds?"
"This is just growing pains," assured the elf. "Give it a few more years and you'll balance it all out and be able to travel the isle just as Her Majesty does."
Alex blinked. "That's a very coherent, useful answer. Am I going to forget it when I wake up?"
He was starting to hear chimes all around them, as though there were bells and bottles in all of the trees being stirred by the wind that had picked up, as well.
"Probably not," said the elf. "But who knows? That's not my area."
Alex laughed, eyes closing, and was hit with a wall of vertigo followed by acute nausea.
"Oh, gods," he murmured, the world feeling very loud and the floor moving very unpleasantly. Or couch? He seemed to be on a couch now, horizontal instead of vertical, and not in a good way.
"He's going to be sick," said a familiar voice, and then Alex put word to deed and threw up into what he hoped was an appropriate receptacle and not onto someone's shoes.
"I'm glad you're back," said another voice, one he couldn't forget for the world. Julian's fingers stroked over his forehead, gentle and cool. "I'm no good without you."
"Same," croaked Alex, and then he threw up again. It wasn't any more pleasant the second time.
"You're going to live, anyway," said the first voice, Geoff's voice. "Once you've purged out everything that's coming up, I'll give you a pain potion for your head. It shouldn't react with any remaining belladonna in your system."
"Belladonna? That explains the dream," said Alex. He squinted his eyes open just a little, then blinked to clear them as Julian's face swam into view. "Apparently the power problems are growing pains, and will settle again in a few years."
