Chapter 41
WENDY
T he cold liquid slips down my throat, coating my esophagus, and I feel it spread through my abdomen and lower belly instantly.
A few breaths later, and the flow of blood stops.
I take a breath, my eyes closed, as I wait for my bearings to return to me.
When I open my eyes, the world has stopped spinning.
I go to stand, but then I hesitate. Rifling through the satchel again, I search for anything that might be of help.
Inside is a vial labeled moly . I remember John saying something about soldiers using it in moments of crisis.
I also remember him saying too much of it can be damaging to the heart, but I don’t take time to weigh my options.
While I’m sure it’s not safe to take this right after suffering a hemorrhage, while I’m sure it’s not safe to cause my heart to pound and blood to pump faster, I don’t need years. I don’t even need days.
I just need enough time to get my son away from Malia. Enough time for Nolan to find us and take him away somewhere safe.
Instead of draining the vial, I stop halfway, then toss it into the satchel before slinging the satchel around my shoulders.
Instantly, my body buzzes with energy. It’s the trembling sort, and at first I fear I’ve ruined my balance.
But when I jump to my feet, I find them at least steady enough to walk on.
Perhaps after a few minutes, I’ll be able to run.
I pad barefoot down the cave tunnels, keeping close to the cave wall, feeling its slick, cool surface against my hand as I lean on it for support.
A few curves in, the tunnel branches off into two.
My heart drops. I’m already well behind Malia, healthy and able to run if she needs to.
One wrong turn, and I’ll more than likely lose her and my son forever.
But I don’t give myself time to think. John’s voice is in my head, to the point where I’m not even sure if it’s him or his wraith come to talk to me in a time of desperate need.
“It’s a fifty/fifty chance,” he says. “There’s no use in reasoning. The only thing you can do is act quickly.”
I veer to the right, mostly because that’s the wall I’m already leaning against. As I sidle down it, my strength slowly returns to me, and I find my pace picking up.
My breathing is labored, and I feel as if my heart might explode in my chest. But I channel the energy, allow it to prod my legs into action.
I’m not sure what I plan to do when I find Malia. But I’ll claw my child out of her arms if I have to.
It’s not much further before I hear feet pounding through the cave, though the pattern makes no sense to me…until Nolan and Charlie round the corner, Maddox not far behind.
“Darling,” says Nolan, glancing at me in horror. It takes him a single second to take me in—my lack of pants, the drying blood between my legs—and his face snaps into that I’ve only ever seen in a predator.
“Where’s our son?” he asks.
“Malia ran off with him,” I say, shocked at the vigor with which the words tremble as they leave my mouth. “She’s going to give him to the Sister.”
“We didn’t see her on the way in,” Charlie says, a satchel swaying at her hip as she glances behind her.
“There’s a fork in the cave.” Since I run out of breath, I point behind me. Nolan and Charlie exchange a glance. Then Nolan looks at Maddox.
“Take care of her,” he says to his first mate, as he sweeps down and places the gentlest of kisses on my forehead, a single tear passing from his cheek to my skin. That’s the last I see of my husband before he races down the hall.
It occurs to me that might be the last time I ever see him.
“We need to get you out of here,” says Maddox, ducking himself underneath my armpit to support me.
“No,” I say. “I have to make sure he’s okay.”
“Nolan will come back with news,” he explains. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. I need to get you to a healer.”
I shake my head. “No. Malia left her satchel. It’s got everything I need. I’ve already stopped the hemorrhaging.”
Maddox glances down to verify, as if he thinks my words are those of a delusional woman. But when he finds no fresh bleeding, his face flushes red, and he quickly glances away.
“It’s not safe for us to go after them,” he explains.
“Please,” I say. “I just have to see him one more time. You can drag me away, even if I put up a fight. What’m I going to do, Maddox?
” I glance at the large man hopelessly. “You can drag me away now, or you can drag me away later. Either way, I can’t do anything to help.
I can’t do anything to fight back—not in this condition. And probably not regardless.”
“I don’t know,” says Maddox. “I’ve seen you handle a dagger.”
“Well, good thing I don’t have a dagger then.”
Maddox examines me cautiously, then glances inside the satchel. When he finds no weapons stored inside, he sighs.
“Well, come on then,” he says, picking me up and carrying me through the cave.
As strong a man as he is, I must only be a feather in his arms. Worry still slows us down, though.
I’m sure Maddox could run with me. But as much as I beg him to hurry, he’s too terrified by my previous hemorrhaging to move at a speed that might jostle me at all.
Finally, we make our way to the fork and take the left tunnel, my heart slamming against my chest the entire way.
My mind conjures the most horrific stories.
I get the awful sense that when we find the others, the Sister will have already come to take away my child.
Will Charlie and Nolan have reached them in time?
And even if they did, what might the Sister do in retaliation?
I don’t believe she would hurt Nolan. She can’t hurt Nolan. But Charlie—Charlie has no such protection.
A scene where Nolan is leaning over Charlie’s corpse, mourning the loss of our child and the loss of his friend, plays through my mind. But as we journey down the tunnel, shouts echo through the caves, along with the sound of metal clanging against metal.
A little bit further, and a shot fires through the canyon-like tunnels. Maddox and I exchange a glance, both familiar by now with the sound of Charlie’s pistol.
Maddox starts running.
We reach the end of the tunnel and find its mouth opening up into the sandy shores of a small cove. The water is a deep blue darkening to black as the sun has already set over the horizon. There’s still enough light to see, but enveloping darkness will come soon enough.
As I approach, I glimpse three figures in the distance—Charlie and Nolan stand on one side of the cove, Malia on the other. For one dreadful moment, I wonder if Charlie shot at the woman still cradling my baby in her arms.
But then Charlie calls out, “That was a warning!”
“Put it up,” Nolan says. “Not with the boy in her arms.”
Charlie’s fingers wrap around the hilt of her pistol, but she doesn’t raise it—not again.
“Give us our son back, Malia,” calls Nolan, his voice echoing across the water, “and we’ll find a way to repay you.”
But Nolan doesn’t understand. Malia doesn’t want money.
“Malia!” I call, and Nolan whips around, wide-eyed with exasperation when he finds Maddox and me behind him.
“The Sister has her son,” I explain.
“You shouldn’t be here,” says Nolan, glaring at Maddox.
Maddox just shrugs as he sets me down. I stumble forward, my legs still trembling, but enough to keep me upright.
“Let us help you get your son back,” I try to yell, but my voice is still feeble from hours’ worth of screaming.
Malia cocks her head at me, looking at me as if I’m a na?ve child. “And what are you going to do to help me? You’re under a bargain to the Sister.”
“We’ve been to the Sister’s lair before—or I have, at least,” says Nolan, his voice calm. “We have connections. Someone who can contact her.”
“Yes, and did you sneak into her lair?” says Malia. “Or did she invite you in?”
Nolan’s jaw goes set.
“That’s what I thought,” Malia says. “I don’t want to hurt any of you.
But I will. Just like you will hurt me to get your son back.
I’ll take care of him as long as I can. I imagine the Sister will keep me in her employ to nurse him until he’s weaned.
This is my promise to you: I will watch after him. ”
“It’s not enough,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “But it’s all I have to offer you.”
She turns, her cloak whipping around her, but stops abruptly as before her, a dark figure emerges. My face drains of blood, as I fully expect the Sister to reach out her shadowy tendrils. But the shape is not that of a woman, but a man.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” says Maddox, his voice carrying from across the cove.
I’ve no idea how he managed to position himself behind her, but then I realize that part of Nolan’s plan must have been to distract her long enough for Maddox to sneak around the forest edge, hidden underneath the cover of the trees.
Malia’s arm jolts. Moonlight reflects off metal as a dagger flies through the air, straight toward Maddox’s chest. Charlie screams, racing forward across the sandy shore, but Maddox dodges, the dagger lodging in a tree trunk directly behind him.
He lets out a growl, then lunges for the Seer, but Charlie has already caught up to them. She throws herself at the woman, and I cry out, unable to consider anything but the possibility that my child might fall upon the rocks in the midst of the struggle.
“Nolan,” I scream, but my husband is already off, his legs charging toward the fray. I hobble after them. The adrenaline might have given me the energy I needed to continue on, but that doesn’t mean it provides the stability I need to run on the sand.
As I fumble forward, I watch in horror as Malia fends off Nolan, Maddox, and Charlie with only a dagger in her left hand, one she must have had on her body.
Malia isn’t fae, and even if she were, it’s three against one, and she has a baby in her right arm. She shouldn’t be this agile, this strong…
I glance at the satchel at my side. Ripping the flap open, I rummage inside.
Most of the vials appear to be for healing purposes, though a few of the labels I don’t recognize.
I glance back and forth between these, wracking my brain for any memories of John rambling about any of these names.
I find myself wishing I could summon his wraith on command, when I realize there’s one vial that’s not labeled at all.
I unstopper the bottle and take a gulp of the foul liquid.
Instantly, something within me changes.
I stand, my feet steady—no, not steady—weightless on the sand.
My child cries out, his screams piercing my ears, amplified by the body of water between us.
I run.