Both Will and Bash eye the fallen sword and I know what happens next. Bastion can roll for it. Will can use his magic to block it. Round and round until one of them is seriously hurt. Or I can kick the sword out of reach. I can get between them so they don’t kill each other and put a stop to this.
I jump to my feet and run.
Bash skids across the street.
Neither of us is faster than magic.
The sword flashes in the sun and materializes in Will’s hand right as I—Oh.
The eyes I’ve been daydreaming so much about meet mine and all goes silent. The world around Will and me crumbles like pollen in the breeze, slowly at first, and then swiftly swept out of sight. My hands fall forward to cover his on the hilt of the sword he’s holding. The one now sticking out of my stomach. Our eyes are locked tight, neither of us breathing.
Will’s golden glow pales, his dry mouth open in shock, that smirk nowhere in sight. His eyes are boring into mine like he’s trying to wish me away. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have been in his path. He didn’t know I was here. If we stay here, like this, frozen in time, if we don’t move, maybe I won’t—maybe—
I have to cough.
The moment breaks.
Pain greets me like a weighing anchor. At once, noise and color and movement rush back so suddenly that the street before me spins. I stumble forward into Will and breathe in his chamomile scent. Even when I press my hands against his chest and wheeze, he’s stunned still.
“Fliss!” Bash’s shout reaches my ears like he’s calling to me from the other side of a field. Hands are on my elbow, patting me down, tapping my cheeks, trying to keep me conscious. “No, no.Fliss.Wake up.”
I wonder for a moment what he means and why I can’t see him and then I realize that I’ve slumped to my knees. My skin is on fire, boiling and pulsating like the blood that’s trying to find a way around the metal through my veins. I’m a stone in a fiery well, unable to rise above the waterline to think clearly. Everything is fuzzy and distant andouch,this hurts. I blink away dark spots. A splatter of blood drips down the front of Will’s shirt. Is that mine?
“Arrest him!”
Wait—I want to say. Instead, I collapse into Bastion, clinging to the last thread of consciousness as the Guards of Alrick force Will to his knees, his hands behind his back. He lets them. He doesn’t once stop staring at me.Wait.Wait—I try to say, over and over, until I can’t fight it any longer.
Until the cool steel of the blade prevails and my world turns dark.
Chapter Seventeen
“Get her on the bed.”
“Careful!”
“Tarin, find Fliss’s mum. Quickly.”That’s Card.
“That bastard—”Bastion. He’s here too. Wherever here is.
“My lord, if you’re going to kick things, please do it outside so I can work. Hold her steady.”
“Sir, we’re out of yarrow.”
“Find some poppy extract.”
“There’s not much of that left either.”
“Gather what you can.”
There are hands on me, pressing, prodding, then—pulling.My throat burns with a scream as metal slidesoutand—
I swing between nothingness and agony. They smother me, smolder beneath my skin like an intimate burial. Seconds could pass, or years. There’s no difference in the feverish in-between where I exist.Occasionally, I’m aware of a coolness against my sweat-beaded forehead, a hand pressed in mine, water dripping down my throat, a murmur of voices, the waft of medicine. For the most part, oblivion is my only companion.
In a murky moment of lucidity, I swim to the surface and squint my eyes open. It’s blurry, hazy, but I’m in a room. I’m in a bed. There’s a candle beside me and a blanket up to my chin. Where am I? What happened? Why can I smell a bouquet of heather and cattail? Aren’t they usually paired to wish good health for someone sick?
I attempt to sit, but a wall of pain hits me so hard, I black out.
“—done what we needed her for. Why are you visiting again?”
