Chapter Thirty-One Trey
Midafternoon
A Field of Dangerous Flowers
Bleeding and Confused
“Trey, we have a problem.”
No shit. I wiped Wilde’s blood off my lips. My tongue ached from the bite and his aggressive kiss. He lay a few feet away from me, black eyes half-closed, bloodstained lips parted as if in a gentle sleep.
“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 the second page!”
Warning: Wear Appropriate Protective Gear While Handling.
While the Somnus ecrosia has 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. “Why aren’t you affected?”
I blinked at her, realizing she’d asked an excellent question. “Maybe I am. Maybe this is all a hallucination.”
“Don’t say that!” She smacked my shoulder, which throbbed with real pain, but the book had listed tactile hallucinations as a side-effect.
“Does the book say anything about how long this is supposed to last?”
Angelica searched around her, feeling the ground and then under Maximus. Then her head slowly rose to look at the book, lying where Maximus had been, next to one of the stray flowers.
I sighed and pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll get it.”
“Wait.” Her hand latched onto my wrist. “Tell me something that will prove this isn’t a hallucination.”
“Angelica, there is literally nothing I can tell you that your own brain couldn’t come up with.”
“Try!”
“Fine, have you ever tasted cum before?”
She recoiled from me, snatching her hand back. “What is the matter with you!”
“Yes or no.”
“No,” she seethed through clench teeth.
“Then you wouldn’t know that it’s kind of salty, kind of bitter, and coats the inside of your mouth.” I stuck a finger in my mouth and popped my cheek out.
“You’re disgusting.”
“And your brain would never supply you with that kind of information.”
She blinked at me, then sighed in relief as her shoulders relaxed. “You’re right, I’m not hallucinating.”
“Your turn.”
She tensed again as she narrowed her eyes. “Last time we did this, we never saw this field of flowers.”
It was my turn to blink in confusion. “What?”
“The trees were frightening but they never did anything like this.”
“No offense, but this sounds exactly like something my own brain would come up with.”
“I found out Wilde was the Lord of Grimnight’s apprentice when a man named Cyril Bowers told me through the mirror.”
“Wait, what?” That bit of information somehow hadn’t come back to me yet. So maybe I was hallucinating, because Angelica never showed any signs of remembering the time-loop.
“We were supposed to get married, you know, in one of the timelines,” she continued, completely ignoring me. “I was so afraid that I would have to see it through that I couldn’t stop shaking, so I held onto you to stop my hands from trembling during the announcement.”
“Angelica, none of this is proving—”
“And I sobbed when I woke up at home, so relieved to have another chance to start over.”
I rubbed my hand down my face. “Angelica, your dreamy, emotional confession sounds more like a hallucination than anything else.”
“Then how about this?”
I looked up in time to receive the splash of water full in the face.
“Is that a hallucination, you jackass!”
Water dripped down my face and soaked the cloth tied around it, sticking it to my mouth. “Well … I’m pretty sure even my brain couldn’t picture you swearing.”
She huffed in irritation. “Go get the book.”
I went and got the book.
We settled down with it held between us, positioned so we could keep an eye on the daydreamers. The next paragraph after the warning—which I might have seen if Angelica hadn’t been bossing me around—contained more details on how to treat someone dealing with pollen toxicity.
Wash the pollen off their face: done.
Put distance between them and the flowers: done.
The book didn’t offer any sort of cure, only a note that said: “If effects linger for longer than twelve hours, seek professional help.”
Where are we supposed to find professional help in the middle of the woods?
I passed the book off to Angelica and leaned my head back against a tree trunk.
Twelve hours wasn’t too long, in the scheme of things, but it was twelve hours of watching over our high companions with only Angelica to talk to.
At least they weren’t staring wide eyed at the sky anymore. Fitz lay on his side, cradling his hands and occasionally muttering, “They’ll come back, you’ll see.”
Maximus was still making the same hand motion, but the time between repetitions had slowed, until he only whispered, “Mushroom” every ten minutes.
Delilah had curled up into a small ball. Occasionally, she whined in her sleep and moved her arms and legs like she was chasing rabbits.
Only Wilde really concerned me. Everyone else made noises of some sort, but he just silently moved his lips. I leaned forward and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling his head onto my lap. Once settled in, his eyes finally closed, and he seemed to fall asleep.
“How long have you known about the time-loop?” I asked Angelica.
“Is it a time-loop if it’s different every time?”
“Some things have been the same for me,” I said. “I think.”
She leaned her head back against her own tree and closed her eyes.
“I’ve been aware of it since the beginning.
Maybe because I was paying attention. Wilde did …
something, and the world shifted around me.
Everything flowed backwards. Slowly at first, then so fast that all I could see was a blur of colors.
When the world settled back into place, I was at the breakfast table, listening to my parents plan out my future. ”
“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why didn’t you?”
We both fell quiet, because we both knew the answer. How did you explain to the people around you that time was repeating? “But you acted like you didn’t know. Delilah’s ears surprised you! And you didn’t get sick at the shopping center, when Wilde altered time twice in a row!”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been sick in public a day in my life—not even a sniffle. A little time travel won’t change that. As for Delilah’s ears, well … I still had to play my part, didn’t I? Or things might not happen how they should.”
“How are things supposed to happen?”
Angelica’s expression hardened. “Wilde gave everyone a second chance, but the Lord of Grimnight does not deserve one. I don’t care that he’s your father.
I’ll complete this quest however many times it takes to defeat him once and for all.
” She stared me down, waiting for my reaction.
To see if I would defend my evil father, ask for leniency or forgiveness.
I looked down at Wilde’s head in my lap, stroking his silky white hair.
The bruises under his eyes had finally faded.
Whatever dreams the flowers gave him, he looked peaceful, happy.
Nothing like an evil mage’s apprentice. Once the old man was gone, Wilde would be free to choose a new path.
“You’re right. The only thing the Lord of Grimnight deserves is death. ”