Chapter 9
Every so often, Nigel’s consciousness fought its way through layers of darkness, fog, pain, and poison to gasp an agonized breath of icy air.
Each time he surfaced, he would think, Oh. Still alive, I see.
Then the clinging fingers of severmist poison would grip his spirit and pull him back under, and any other thoughts halfway-formed in his head slipped away, replaced by pure agony.
He’d surface again some while later, take another ragged breath, and sink once more.
How many times this happened, he could not guess.
Neither could he guess how much time passed between each strangled breath.
Part of him was still aware of the need to fight.
Luna was in danger, after all. The Brotherhood was out there, and that meant he couldn’t just lay down and die.
Not like this. It was one thing to give his life in glorious battle, defending her against all foes.
It was quite another to make a stupid mistake and die before ever reaching the battlefield.
Nigel clung to the idea of Luna. Even in the absolute depths, in the darkness and the wallowing pit of pain, she was there.
In his heart. A beacon, a light toward which he might turn and strive.
This alone, he suspected, enabled him to fight for each ragged gasp of air in his lungs.
But he never seemed to make any progress.
Eventually, he knew, the severmist would win this struggle.
How long would it take for his body to be discovered in this back alley behind the abandoned rec center?
Would Luna mourn his loss, or would she be relieved? Would she—
Something pried his mouth open. The next instant, something else was stuffed inside.
Nigel’s tongue was assaulted with a potent, floral flavor which he found singularly disgusting.
Disgusting enough, in fact, that it jolted him back to a space of semi-lucidity, and his ears were able to discern an ungentle voice demanding, “Never mind!” furiously.
Though it required far more effort than he wished to expend on anything pertaining to this mortal existence, Nigel managed to make himself chew. Then swallow.
His body spasmed. The next moment, he heaved up his guts for the second time that night.
When the awful cramps in his stomach finally abated, he lay in the cold, muddy snow next to a puddle of his own sick.
It was such a miserable state of being, he was more than willing to let himself pass out again, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
But a sharp burst of fiery pain in his fingers jolted him back to consciousness.
He forced his eyelids up, and his bleary vision took in the sight of a multi-headed stock of pink blossoms. Some of those heads worried at his fingertips quite viciously, while others shot tiny sparks of flame.
“Snapdragons,” Nigel muttered. He shut his eyes, shook his head.
He was becoming aware of other sensations up and down his body.
Toothless mouths worrying at his trouser legs, soft petals stroking his cheeks.
When he made himself look, he found he was surrounded by flowers.
Dahlias and tiger lilies, petunias and carnations.
“Wh-wha-what . . .” Words garbled in his throat, not wanting to emerge.
But the sound brought all those little petaled faces turning to look at him with some expectation.
“What are you lot doing here?” he managed at last, followed by an, “Ow! Steady on!” when, out of nowhere, a thorny cane smacked across his backside.
He pushed himself upright, away from the sickness and the snow.
Flowers scattered, giving him room to maneuver, then crowded in close as he propped himself heavily on quivering arms. The double-delight undulated into his line of vision, much larger and more impressive than the rest. Many bi-colored blossoms shook their ruffled heads at him with clear disdain.
Nigel felt his mouth gaping open as he stared around at the dirty little alley, which had somehow, miraculously, transformed into an extraordinary garden.
“Y-you shouldn’t be here. Out in the cold,” he said, teeth chattering.
Now that the immediate threat of death had passed, he became more aware of the winter chill himself. “It’s not . . . it’s not good for you.”
He smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth then, tasting that nasty floral flavor once more, mingled with the sickness and heaved-up severmist. Not a winning combination.
Whatever they had fed him seemed to have purged some of the poison, at least. But he could still feel the severmist stirring inside him.
The moment he tried to use sorcery again, the anti-sorcery agent would activate, canceling out the channeling of power to disastrous effect.
Gods above, as though the Sovereign Troth wasn’t crippling enough!
Nigel hung his head, breathing out a rough exhale.
Based on what he recalled about severmist, it could take days, weeks even, to pass entirely out of the system.
While he might be able to perform low-level sorcery, any further attempts to work magic on a grander scale—like transmatterportation, for instance—could prove disastrous.
“Never mind?” Debbie fluttered to perch on his shoulder and pecked at his ear.
“Damn,” Nigel whispered, bowing his head and shaking it. “What a sorry excuse for a sorcerer I’ve turned out to be.”
Flowers crowded up to his knees, climbed on his bent legs.
The tiger lilies purred and rubbed their pretty orange faces against his waistcoat, while the dahlias sighed sweetly, and the snapdragons nibbled more gently than usual at his fingers.
Even the double-delight deigned to bow one of her fragrant blossoms and caress his cheek.
A sudden surge of warm feeling welled up in Nigel’s heart. He looked down at the aromatic little crowd, his gaze searching until he spotted a trumpet-shaped blossom. “Houndsnose,” he said, “did you fetch them? To help me?”
The little wildflower’s leafy tail wagged gently.
To Nigel’s surprise, tears prickled in his eyes.
“Good boy,” he said a little thickly. Then he stretched out his hand to run a finger down that delicate green stem.
“Good boy, good little flower.” He turned to catch Debbie’s blinking eye.
“And you? Did you stick that . . . that disgusting blossom in my mouth?”
She ruffled her wings defensively. “Never mind!”
“No, I’m not mad,” Nigel assured her. “Not at all. I think . . . I think you saved my life.”
The raven must have watched what Luna had done for him earlier in the night and tried to emulate it.
And a good thing too. Nigel leaned his head against hers, closing his eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Then he looked around at all the flowers, who watched him closely.
“You were that worried about me, were you?”
Leaves and petals fluttered delicately. A lump lodged in Nigel’s throat.
All this time, he had labored so hard to restore his father’s legacy, to undo the damage he had wrought when he battled Jastira.
But he’d always thought of himself as an outsider, an unwelcome but necessary intruder.
He’d never thought . . . never hoped . . . never imagined . . .
The double-delight patted his cheek with a green leaf.
Then she tilted multiple blossoms, questioningly.
The tiger lilies were once more pulling at his trousers as though they would like to carry him back home, but they weren’t strong enough.
“It’s all right,” Nigel told them. “I think I can walk. Let’s give it a try, shall we? ”
Using the brick wall, he managed to get himself upright.
His eyes scanned the mess he’d made in the alley, the remnants of two different sigils, the spatterings of anti-glitter, the wasted drops of distilled Dire Matter.
Reaching out with his foot, Nigel smeared the sigils a bit more and kicked dirty snow to cover them.
No point in leaving evidence of sorcerous activity.
“Right,” he said at last, looking down at the flowers, who clustered at his feet. “Let’s get you lot home before you freeze to death.”
Snapdragons climbed his trousers and filled his pockets.
The dahlias tucked themselves into the front of his waistcoat, while the tiger lilies clung to his shoulders, ousting Debbie, who took to the air.
Nigel tucked petunias and carnations into the pockets of Yorik Balthazar’s dressing gown, then picked up the double-delight, who wrapped her canes around his wrists and forearms. Nigel breathed in deep of her perfume, trying to believe that sweetness could purify some of the severmist still inside him.
Then he pulled his shoulders back. He didn’t know if he had the strength to make it all the way back to The Arcane Bouquet. For the sake of the flowers, he had to try.
He set out walking, lurching from the alley, even as Debbie circled overhead. Her black pinions cast ominous shadows, like a foretelling of doom.