Chapter 16
For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the laboratory. But then—
“The Reaper Priest is your brother?” Wynter shrieked. “I didn’t even know you had a brother! How—Why—What—I don’t understand!”
“How about we cure Reeve and then have question time,” Sage suggested tightly, gesturing to the vial clutched in Wynter’s white-knuckled grip. “It’s a miracle he’s still alive with how chatty you lot are.”
“I can wait a bit longer,” Reeve said, watching Viri carefully, his eyes still full of compassion.
But it was clear he was in a great deal of pain, too, the color leaching from his face as the zingzest left his system.
It wouldn’t be long before he lost consciousness again, and this time… he might not wake up.
“Sage is right.” Viri held her hand out to Wynter. “I’ll answer anything you want in a minute. Just tell me how to help him first.”
Wynter’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as she stared between Viri and Reeve, shock still splashed across her features, but she pulled herself together and handed over the pink vial. “Thirteen years should be more than enough.”
“I haven’t seen him for the last seven,” Viri said. “Will that matter?”
Wynter stared between them again, likely calculating what that meant in the timeline of Viri’s life, her eyes widening with realization. But she only said, “No. Magic isn’t fickle like that. It’ll still count as thirteen years.”
Viri turned the vial between her fingers. “Do I just shove it down his throat, like the zingzest?”
“I vote we come up with an alternative word to ‘shove,’ ” Reeve murmured, groaning as he leaned back against the couch, unable to keep holding his body upright without support.
“He can swallow it himself this time,” Wynter said. “You just need to be touching him while he does it.” Seeing Viri’s expression, she quickly added, “Holding hands is fine. Anything skin to skin.”
“Ahh, of course,” Jonas said gleefully as he skimmed Wynter’s notes. “Essence transconveyance.”
“Essence what?” Sage asked, squinting at her friend.
Wynter looked at Viri and explained, “When Ashton takes the cure, the poison will be forced to leave his body, and it’s going to do that through his connection to you. The magic demands a cost, and you’ll be the one paying it.”
“No, we’re not doing that,” Reeve said, his words stronger than any he’d uttered since being stabbed. “Come up with something else.”
“Easy, Ashton,” Wynter said, waving him down when he tried unsuccessfully to stand.
“She wasn’t stabbed by the grimblade, so the poison itself won’t infect her.
She’ll only feel the metaphysical essence of it, a fraction of what you’re experiencing, and for barely a second.
Think of her like a wayportal—a one-way transit point.
The cure sends the poison from your body into the ‘portal,’ and your connection to her pushes it out the other side, never to return.
Understand?” When she received blank looks from everyone but Jonas, she threw her hands in the air and pointed to her runic book.
“Fine, you don’t need to understand. Just do it because the instructions say so, all right? ”
Not thrilled by being referred to as a human wayportal, Viri decided the best thing to do was to get it over with, and she moved back to Reeve’s side, passing him the vial and holding her hand out to him.
“You, uh, might want to sit down,” Wynter warned.
Viri looked back at her friend. “I thought you said I’d barely feel it?”
“I did.” Wynter shifted uneasily beside her workbench. “But, you know, just in case.”
Sighing, Viri lowered herself beside Reeve again, then held out her hand once more.
He didn’t take it.
“Go on,” she urged, and when he still refused, she rolled her eyes at the concern she saw in his expression and grabbed his hand herself. “Swallow the cure, or I’ll make you.”
His voice was quiet, just for her, as he said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She braced herself against everything those words made her feel and bluntly said, “I’ve survived worse than this from you. Just do it already.”
Reeve held her gaze for a long moment, then tightened his grip and obediently threw back the contents of the vial, shuddering at the taste.
One second passed.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Still, nothing happened.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Viri said, frowning from the empty vial to their joined fingers. “Wyn, are you sure it—”
She broke off in a gasp as pain slammed into her, her temples pounding, her body freezing and boiling, her stomach cramping, her skin feeling like it was being peeled away layer by layer.
She clenched Reeve’s hand so hard it must have hurt, but it was that or scream loud enough to pierce his eardrums. The pain—the pain—
Just when she was sure she couldn’t stand it another moment, the agony vanished, leaving her collapsed and panting on the couch with Reeve leaning over her, his free hand cupping her uninjured cheek, his silver eyes edged with worry.
She pushed him away and sat up again, but did so while croaking out, “If that was only a fraction of what the poison made you feel, how the hell did you last so long?”
Immediately, Reeve’s face shuttered. He rose to his feet, stretching his limbs and rolling his shoulders, evidently as good as new. “I’m no stranger to pain,” he answered, avoiding her gaze. “The more you feel it, the less it hurts.”
Unease rippled through Viri, the feeling unexplainable—and unwelcome. “What do you—”
Reeve didn’t let her get the question out, instead walking over to Wynter and saying, “Thank you for your help. I’m in your debt.”
Wynter handed him a jar of healing salve. “Put some of that on your wound. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but with the poison gone, it’ll fix the damage in no time.”
Reeve followed her instructions, causing Wynter to gag and turn away as he lifted his shirt to reveal the wound in all its grisly glory.
Viri turned away for a different reason, though not in time to stop the image of his tanned, chiseled torso from being burned into her brain.
A flush hit her cheeks, only growing when he strode back over and sat beside her once more, reaching for her hand.
“What—” She cut herself off when he moved her scarlet cloak aside to smear some of the salve over the dagger gash on her forearm.
His gentle ministrations caused a lump to lodge in her throat, but a strange, urgent fear took over her when he scooped up more and raised his fingers toward her clawed cheek.
“I’ve got it,” she said quickly, her voice hoarse as she took the jar from him and leapt to her feet, slathering the ointment on herself and wincing at the sting. Somehow, she knew that if she’d let Reeve do it, it wouldn’t have hurt at all.
“Here.” Viri passed the salve to Sage, gesturing to the bump on the purple-haired girl’s head. “It’ll bring the swelling down.”
“Incredible,” Reeve murmured, and when Viri swung back to him, his shirt was lifted again—Elders help her, she was never going to get that image out of her mind now—and he was staring in amazement at how fast his wound was healing.
“That’s alchemy for you,” Wynter said with a humble shrug. “Magic can do anything. The only limit is your own imagination.”
“And a lack of accessible knowledge and training. Those are limitations, too,” Jonas said, staring longingly at the books lining Wynter’s shelves. “I’m so jealous that you’ve had all this at your fingertips for years.”
“Speaking of years…” Wynter glanced pointedly between Viri and Reeve. “He’s not dying anymore, so it’s time for answers.”
Viri swallowed at the firm expression on her friend’s face and resisted the urge to say she was in desperate need of answers herself—from Reeve. But Wynter had just saved his life, so Viri could spare a moment to fill her in.
“I mentioned before that we met thirteen years ago—that’s when he was adopted by my next-door neighbors,” Viri said.
“Adopted?” Wynter looked at Reeve. “No parents?”
Viri bit her cheek, feeling a pang of discomfort for Reeve at the personal question, but he casually answered, “My father died when I was five—a few months before I met Viri—and since I didn’t know who or where my mother was, I was declared an orphan.”
“I’m sorry,” Wynter said, softening slightly toward him.
He just shrugged. “I loved my dad. He was a kind, honest man, and I miss him every day.” Something shifted in his eyes as he looked away from Wynter and stared up through the glass-domed ceiling. “But my mom can go to hell for the selfish choices she’s made.”
His fierce declaration made Wynter soften even more. “I’m lucky to have a great mom, but my dad…” She paused, then quietly finished, “I know what it’s like to be abandoned by a parent. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.”
Reeve said nothing, a muscle clenching in his jaw as he continued staring into the gloomy lake.
Viri cleared her throat and picked up her story.
“When Reeve moved in, he quickly became close with my family. His adoptive parents were old—so old they’re no longer with us—and mine were always off hunting, so it was just us kids around for most of the time.
He and—and Braedan”—Viri choked on her brother’s name, having not said it aloud in seven years until today—“they hit it off right away. Brae’s four years older than me, three years older than Reeve, but the age difference didn’t matter—they became best friends. And where they went, I went.”
“My Little Shadow,” Reeve murmured, a smile tugging at his mouth, though he kept looking up through the water.
Viri pressed her lips together in annoyance, but only said, “That’s how we know each other—we were childhood friends. End of story.”