“Give her that one first; if there isn’t a break, it won’t hurt.” Sadie grabbed a mustard-yellow potion while Nicholas uncorked the first and offered it to Helen.
Helen accepted it and downed the potion without hesitation. Then she held her hand out to Sadie. Sadie uncorked the vial in her hand and passed it over. Then she pulled out the green healing potion people were most familiar with.
Helen saw it and grabbed it before Sadie could open the bottle. She realized she couldn’t get it open herself and nearly sobbed. Nicholas plucked the cork free, and Helen tossed back the general healing potion that everyone used for its pain-relief properties.
Helen sighed. “Oh, that is a strong potion. I can feel it taking effect already.”
“We still need to set your wrist if it is indeed broken,” Sadie pointed out. She should have started with the pain potion, sherealized. She had only ever made potions to sell previously; she hadn’t needed to administer them. She hadn’t even thought to offer the pain potion first.
“I’ll send for the doctor from Valway,” a man she recognized as the manor’s butler announced.
For the first time, Sadie noticed just how many people were in the foyer with them. She wasn’t sure if she had overlooked them because of the horror of thinking Helen might have fallen to her death or if it was because Sadie was finally learning to control her telepathy enough that crowds didn’t generate a buzz in her mind.
She needed to loosen her control over her magic, though, to scan for the demon. It was bad having it in the manor with them, but letting it get loose to Valway, and then who knew where would be worse. She turned to the butler. “I’ll come with you and tell whomever you send which potions I used so the doctor knows.”
Sadie?Nicholas’s mental voice slipped inside her mind now that her shields were lowered.Is something wrong?
I want to make sure the demon doesn’t sneak to Valway.
I think it was in Helen’s maid at the top of the stairs and she ran after pushing her, but good idea.
Sadie blanched.She was at the top of the stairs? And she only broke her wrist and maybe twisted an ankle?
Nicholas’s response was delayed as he addressed his butler. “Send Greggs. He can use my horse in order to get there faster. Sadie will go with him to the stable and explain the potions while he saddles up.”
I was right at the foot of the stairs when it happened. I caught her with a ward only a few steps from the top, but I can’t make my wards soft and she hit it at an awkward angle.
Sadie heard the self-reproach in Nicholas’s mental tone and paused before following the butler and Timmons out of thefoyer.Nicholas, she could have died. That a broken wrist is the worst of her worries is thanks to you. You reacted quickly and saved her. Remember that.
She didn’t think he meant for her to catch the thought that followed as she walked away, but she heard it anyway.But is it too little, too late at this point?
Thirty-Four
???
Something had tochange.
Nicholas helped Helen to her feet, and let her use him as a crutch to get to the closest chair in the parlor off the foyer. He’d have carried her if her crinoline wouldn’t have made it all but impossible and embarrassed her worse than limping a few dozen paces.
Sadie might insist he had done well, that Helen’s fall could have resulted in something much worse, but Nicholas couldn’t stop thinking that it shouldn’t have happened at all. The demon was sneaking around the manor, a threat to his guests and staff, and he had done nothing to stop it yet.
He needed to get into the Gloaming Forest and find the portal to the demon realm. He needed to banish the demon before it caused even more harm.
If he didn’t get rid of the demon, next time it could be Sadie who was hurt. Nicholas might not be close enough to help. There might not be anything he could do to help.
The instant Helen was settled, Nicholas pulled his mother aside. “I need to find the portal. Can you handle everything here?”
His mother nodded. “Certainly. Go.”
He didn’t ask if his mother was carrying the charm he had given her or if she had taken her dose of Sadie’s potion thatmorning. He knew the answers. His mother was as protected as possible while living in a manor actively haunted by a demon. She’d handle everyone, and there wouldn’t be many opportunities for mischief sitting in the parlor.
Besides, she wouldn’t be the demon’s primary target since it was working with Abigail.
That would be Sadie.
Nicholas hurried out of the parlor, grateful that his next task would take him to the stables anyway and he didn’t need to think up an excuse to check on Sadie. He needed to assure himself that she was safe. The demon could be in the stables with her right that moment.
It didn’t matter that Sadie carried one of his charms and had taken a dose of her own mental fortitude potion that morning. It didn’t matter that she was the only person who could detect the demon. No reassurance Nicholas gave himself was enough to quiet his worry about letting her out of his sight.
