“We did it! I mean, you did it. I mean, we all did it together.”
He jumped excitedly in place, hopping up and down, very much like his burrowfolk best friend. The party clapped each other’s backs in congratulations.
All except Braiden, still too dazed with the realization of what he’d done, some of the greatest weaving work he’d ever performed. The Heirloom was a powerful artifact indeed.
And then, landing from his fourth jump, Bones’s cheering was cut short as he collapsed into a pile of bones.
Elyssandra was the first to react, sputtering in panic until she placed her hands over the scattered pile.
“I can still sense the magic radiating from his bones,” she said. “He’s alive. Or undead. You know what I mean.”
Something emanated from the skull that lay atop the pile.
“Warren,” it whispered. “Come close.”
Warren bent in, picking up the skull so he could listen more closely. Again the skull said, “Closer,” and so Warren bent his ear to listen even harder.
Even Braiden could hear Bones’s stage whisper. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I just know that this is your fault. Ahhh.”
After that ominous exhalation, the skull rolled onto its side, then went still. Braiden licked his lips, watching the tableau with a mix of tension and fear. “Is he — gone?”
The skeleton started snoring. Warren rolled his eyes.
“Well, it turns out that everything’s going to be fine,” Augustin said, “for the most part. But if the Heirloom took that much out of friend Bones, then that means — ”
Braiden removed himself from the Heirloom at about that moment, an epiphany come too late. Something like magnetic force caused his fingers to cling to the Heirloom, as if it didn’t want to let go. But as soon as his touch left the instrument, a wave of exhaustion flooded throughout his body.
“Oh, no,” he said, before he fell backward, straight into Augustin’s waiting arms.
“We should have known,” Augustin said, a smile in his voice. “But worry not. With enough rest and nutrition, you’ll be back to fighting form in no time.”
Fighting? Braiden thought. No thanks. Even this final confrontation with the hellhounds had been too much action for one day.
He struggled to focus on the very top of the cavern far above them. He blinked, then saw the familiar wooden boards and plaster of his shop’s ceiling. Uh-oh. And here came the hallucinations.
“Do you think Craghammer’s doing okay on his own?” he murmured.
Elyssandra chuckled, feeling at his forehead and stroking a lock of hair out of his eyes. “I’m sure he’s doing just fine.”
It was taking too much effort to stay awake now. Braiden stroked a lazy finger along the underside of Augustin’s beard, smiling dreamily.
“Remember how that tidal wave in Whiteport knocked you out for a week?”
Augustin cocked an eyebrow. “Er, yes?”
“I think I get it now.”
Braiden Beadle slept for an entire week.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Braiden did,in fact, wake up at intervals to gulp huge quantities of water for his parched throat, or to partake of quick meals. Most of them were administered lovingly by Augustin, and some by a very attentive Elyssandra.
After a few days, Braiden finally felt strong enough to return to work at Beadle’s Needles. Grand adventure aside, it felt right to be back on his own two feet, on the familiar old floorboards of the shop.
The portal had successfully held, both the demons and their pet hellhounds making the journey back through to the other side. Braiden convinced himself to think of it not as a permanent goodbye, but a “See you later,” even as the portal winked shut and Valefour and the others waved gratefully back at them.
