“Trey!”
“What?” I shouted, whirling around to face Angelica.
Fitz had fallen off his log and was sobbing on the ground as his arms circled in the air, like he was cradling something precious. His mumbled words were too difficult to understand, and I didn’t have the patience to listen.
Angelica pressed her cloth mask more firmly to her face with one hand while she chucked the book at my head with the other.
I barely ducked in time, and the book flew past me to hit Maximus instead.
He lay on his back, eyes locked on the sky. The pupils were so black that they devoured his hazel irises. He pressed his hands together, slowly raised them up, expanded them into a plume, and then pulled them apart. “Mushroom,” he said. Then he repeated the process, from beginning to end, slowly and deliberately each time.
Before I could ask what the fuck was wrong with either of them, a shrill, forlorn wail rose from the flowers. I jerked my head up and found Delilah laying a few feet into the field, most of her body obscured.
“Delilah! Get out of there!”
“I don’t want to be a dog,” she wailed, grabbing fistfuls of flowers, and sobbing into them like a handkerchief.
Angelica dashed forward and grabbed Delilah’s ankle. “We have to get them away from the flowers!”
I let Angelica take care of Delilah while I grabbed Wilde. As much fight as he’d put up before, he was now completely limp in my arms. When I picked him up, his head tilted back over my arm and his black eyes slid open. In them, I could see the reflection of thousands of flowers. “What the fuck is wrong with these flowers?”
“Fitz didn’t read the warning!” Angelica finished dragging Delilah out of the field and dumped her next to Fitz. Since the flowers had affected him, we’d need to move farther away, but we still had to grab Maximus.
I laid Wilde down next to the others. All their eyes remained open as they muttered and cried to themselves. Wilde didn’t make a sound, but his lips moved like he was deep in conversation with someone.
I left them together and joined Angelica to help carry Maximus. She picked up the book and shoved it in my face, pointing to a section in bold, black ink. “The stupid publisher put the warning on thesecondpage!”
Warning: Wear Appropriate Protective Gear While Handling. While the Somnus ecrosiahas many medicinal uses, the pollen is a highly concentrated hallucinogen. Side effects of inhalation include: audio, visual, and tactile hallucinations; numbness in various parts of the body; aggression, euphoria, paranoia, and other mood instability; cross-species confusion; lingering smell of wet cotton; the sudden urge to perform interpretative dance; narcolepsy; a temporary allergy to chocolate, dogs, or pine needles; memory loss; memory gain; the inability to tell time; and dry mouth.
“Fuck.”
“Help me move Maximus!”
I dropped the book and grabbed Maximus’ shoulders.Why does he have to be so damn big?My muscles already ached when we were only halfway toward the others, and we ended up dropping him a few feet away, then rolling him along the ground until he was as far from the field as possible. Grass and dirt stained his clothes and tangled in his bristly hair, and a light shimmer of iridescent dust clung to his eyelashes.
Angelica pulled a handkerchief out of her pouch and poured water onto it to clean off Maximus’ face.
“Here, I’ll start on the others,” I said and held out my hand.
She started to hand me another handkerchief, then froze, her eyes widening in horror. “Trey, you should be wearing a mask!” She shoved the handkerchief toward my face, almost poking me in the eye and stuffing part of the cloth up my nose.
I scowled and snatched it from her hand. “If it was going to affect me, I’d already be showing symptoms.”
“We don’t know that! Put it on so I don’t have to play nurse alone.”
I sighed and wrapped the handkerchief around my face, tying it at the back of my head. “Happy?”
“No! I am very much not happy about any part of this situation!” Her eyes reddened and watered.
“Come on, don’t cry—”
“I am not crying! The pollen is irritating my eyes!” She turned away from me and dabbed at her eyes with a new wet handkerchief. Contrary to her claims, her voice had a distinct sob as she wailed, “And I am about to run out of handkerchiefs!”
I couldn’t tell if this was ‘mood instability’ or ‘Angelica being overwhelmed.’ I decided to wait to see if she did anything else.
She sniffed and finished cleaning her face, then eyed me suspiciously. “Whyaren’tyou affected?”
I blinked at her, realizing she’d asked an excellent question. “Maybe I am. Maybe this is all a hallucination.”
