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The ember lines are bright orange from his collar to his knuckles, and the air around him is so hot I feel it on my face. His tail is lashing. He looks at Tara on the floor, and at her arms, and then he turns around to face the room.
“Who poured it,” he says.
Nobody answers.
“Who touched it.” The bar mat nearest his hand begins to smoke. “Every one of you who went near that case stands still. Right now. Or I swear to God I will find you.”
People stop. Kit stops, her hands up. Priya is crying.
Behind him, Tara makes a small sound. Not a word.
Merek turns around.
The fire goes out of him all at once. He drops to his knees beside Tav and puts his hand on her face, and he’s careful, even now. He’s checking that he isn’t burning her.
“Trouble,” he says. “Hey. Trouble. Look at me.”
She does, for a second. Then her eyes close again.
He takes her hand between both of his. “She’s cold,” he says. “Why is she cold? I’m right here. Why is she cold?”
Odette comes through at a run, with her bag, and drops down where I make room for her. She puts the clip on Tara’s finger and looks at the number and says nothing at all, which I have learned is not good. Stethoscope. Two fingers at Tara’s throat. She takes Tara’s wrist and turns it over and sees the black lines, and stops for half a second.
“I’ve never seen this,” she says. “I don’t know what this is.” She’s already reaching for her radio. “I need an ambulance at the Club, now. Female, twenty-three, barely conscious, suspected ingested poison, rapid shallow breathing.” She looks at me. “What did she drink?”
“Champagne. William has the glass.”
“Keep it.” To the radio: “Get them here. I don’t care what’s going on at the doors.” Then, past me, sharp, “Pell. The oxygen and the defibrillator from the cabinet on the dock. Run.” And to Tav, “Lay her flat. I need her head. Slide out, slowly.”
Tav eases out from under her and lowers her head to the floor as if it’s made of glass. Odette tips Tara’s chin up with two fingers, bends close to her mouth, and watches her chest. When Pell comes back with the green cylinder, Odette has the mask over Tara’s face before the bag is all the way open.
The stone is forty feet from here. Down the narrow stairs, behind the bar. She put her hand on it two hours ago and the whole house answered her.
“The stone,” I say. “If I take her down to the stone...”
“You don’t move her,” Odette says, without looking up. “Not one inch. You don’t know what that would do, and neither do I.”
She’s right. I stay where I am.
I take Tara’s hand.
I know healers in six countries. I know people who owe me favors they swore they’d repay.
None of them can get here in time.
“Tara,” I say. “Stay with me. Help is coming. You’re going to stay with me.”
Her hand moves in mine. The black has reached her fingers.
Overhead, the lights in the arch above the bar flare silver, and go out.
She finds my face. Her gaze moves from Tav, whose hand is on her hair, to Merek, then up to William, before coming back to me.
Her lips move behind the mask. Odette lifts it an inch. I lean down until my ear is almost against her mouth.
“I didn’t miss a single night,” she says.
Twenty-eight nights. The freezer, and the vault, and the fog in the suite, and every midnight after.
