“I’m fine,” he grunted, trying to rise again, but unable to support his own weight.
“Let me see.” Sage shoved his hand away, then sucked in a sharp breath at what she found.“Elders!”
Viri leaned in to look and nearly retched. It wasn’t just the depth of the wound that was alarming, it was also the skin around it, which had turned an unnatural green color beneath the still-gushing blood.
“Why does it look like that?” she breathed, worried she already knew the answer.
Poison.
Sage didn’t confirm her fears, only ordered, “Grab his other arm.” To Reeve, she said, “We need to get you to Jonas. Rightnow.”
“The kids—” Reeve gritted out.
“I’ll see them all safely back to their homes,” Ardin said, having appeared at their sides without Viri noticing.
She was about to protest—the thought of leaving the children in the care of a reaper went against everything she believed in—but when Reeve groaned again, the sound flooded her withguilt. He’d taken that dagger forher. She owed him her help, even if that meant trusting someone whose very nature was untrustworthy. Ardin had risked his life that night to save the kids—as had Reeve and Sage, to Viri’s unending confusion—so she had to hope his protective act meant he wouldn’t turn around and hurt them now.
“Swear to me that they’ll be safe with you,” Viri said, her voice low to keep the children from hearing. With the storm gone, the alley was nearly silent, the only sounds being the drip of rainwater and the quiet sniffing of the kids.
“Any oath I offer will mean little since you don’t know me,” Ardin said, his dark eyes steady on hers. “But on my life, I swear no harm will come to them while they’re in my care.”
Viri’s gaze dropped to the veins along his hands. He didn’t try to cover them, didn’t hide what he was, didn’tdenywhat he was, and that more than anything gave her a strange kind of reassurance.
“We need to move,” Sage told Viri. “Help me get him up.”
“One second,” Viri said, sprinting over to the reaper still incapacitated by her fillium to ask where he and the others had been taking the kids. But when she reached him, he wasn’t half conscious and spitting curses, as she’d expected.
Instead, he was dead.
Viri blanched at the sight of his slashed throat, then tensed as Ardin stepped up beside her.
“The reaper who got away must have done this,” he observed grimly, nudging the body with his boot. “They couldn’t free him from your weapon, not without suffering the same effects, so they silenced him to keep him from being interrogatedby it.”
Ruthless but effective, Viri thought, disgusted anew by the merciless nature of reapers.
“We’re not all like that,” Ardin said quietly, reading the revulsion on her face.
Viri didn’t bother responding, just reclaimed her fillium and hurried back to where Sage was holding Reeve upright, his head drooping and his face so pale it was nearly gray. She hesitated only a beat before slinging his free arm around her shoulders, buckling slightly as she took half his weight.
“I’ve got him,” Viri said. “Let’s go.”
14
The trek back to the wayportal was long and laborious, with Reeve nearly a dead weight by the time they stepped through the magestone arch and made it to Jonas’s apartment.
As they burst through the front door, Viri’s discomfort from the ellixen ward was second to her aching neck and shoulders, with relief coming only when they lowered Reeve onto the couch she’d passed out on earlier that night.
“Hey, guys,” Jonas said, appearing from the hallway with a smile on his face and Walnut peeking out from his vest pocket. “Did you save the—”
He halted abruptly at the sight of their soaked, filthy forms, his smile faltering and nose scrunching at the water dripping onto his carpet. But then his gaze traveled to the pallid, bloodied Reeve, and his blue eyes widened in alarm.
“What happened?” he asked, hurrying over.
“Grimblade,” Reeve forced out, sounding like the effort cost him. “I don’t know what kind.”
Viri sucked in a shocked breath. Grimblades were extremely rare weapons used by the ancient mages, each infused with aspecific kind of magic. She’d heard rumors of grimblades that left untreatable wounds, others that could turn people to stone, or could track anyone whose blood they’d drawn, or could cut through the thickest of armor. There were even whispers of ones that could nullify magic, like Viri’s fillium. Whatever power they held, grimblades were all created and used with a single purpose: to bring suffering and death to their victims.
“Elders,” Jonas breathed as he bent closer and saw the green tinge spreading across Reeve’s side. “That’s not good.” He prodded the wound, ignoring Reeve’s pained grunt. “How long ago did this happen?”
