Chapter Twenty-Five. In Which Life-Altering Realizations Occur #2
“You could try,” Risa sighed, lurching during a particularly intense jerk of the airship. She scrabbled for purchase on the curtain. The airship controls erupted with more furious warning beeps. “Knife might accidentally sail into your eye. Can’t go around having two people wearing eyepatches.”
“Forget her!” Bella shouted at El Gib. “Grab the princess, get into the emergency ship, and let them crash!”
“She’s a witch,” Carlos whispered, shaking his head. His eye widened with terror as he backed away, heading for the back of the airship.
“I’ve never seen a witch,” El Gib spat. “And that means they don’t exist.”
“Are you kidding? They’re everywhere. And they’re listening all the time.” Carlos raised both arms above his head to form a triangle.
“There’s no such thing as witches!” Bella was fuming. She grabbed Amina before the princess could reach her daggers and grunted as Amina struggled in her grasp. “We need to go!”
The airship tilted to the right. Risa slid across the floor until her head knocked into the edge of a bench seat with enough force to rattle her teeth. El Gib stumbled and let go of Brunie. The cat leaped into Risa’s arms.
Before she could scramble onto her feet, the tip of a blade pressed against her neck, hard enough that she felt something warm ooze down into her collar.
“I’ll go without a fuss!” Amina shouted, eyes frantic as El Gib loomed over Risa. “Just let her go.”
El Gib dropped the blade, turned to grab the princess out of Bella’s grip, and hauled her to the back of the failing ship.
Risa pressed a hand against her wound as she watched El Gib wrench a slim metal frame open, revealing a bare, narrower airship with a few controls inset on a wall. He shoved Amina inside. The Sanguines followed her in, squeezing together in the tight space.
El Gib lingered at the threshold for a moment, his horrid smirk turned on Risa, before he disappeared.
Risa hadn’t been able to save them after all.
The airship groaned as the small emergency airship El Gib and the others were in detached from the hull.
For a moment, the vehicle righted itself in an attempt to correct for the missing weight, but then it was diving nose-first again.
Javi slid across the floor and Risa rushed to pull him back.
Stomach heaving, she barely registered the burning sensation across her throat and the slickness that coated her neck.
His face remained slack and still as stone.
His curls were matted with blood, and a few locks were plastered to his unlined forehead.
There was a smudge of blood on his cheek that she tried to wipe away with a sleeve but unfortunately just smeared around.
When he didn’t stir, Risa shoved his hip with a knee, lightly at first, and then with greater urgency.
Nothing.
“Please,” she begged. “Wake up.”
But he did not.
This was what happened to Bad Things. To whoever got close enough to brush against the tendrils of her curse and get ensnared in its roots. Never to her, not really, which was the real curse. Leaving her as witness to the disaster and with no way to make it better, only worse.
A knot formed in her throat as hot tears stung her eyes.
She should have told the truth and admitted her secret, no matter how angry she was at him. She should have let him be her friend. Most of all, she should have forgiven him—
Javi groaned.
“I’m not dead yet, so don’t start crying.” Javi coughed and, rolling onto an arm, pushed himself off the floor. A whistle slipped through his gritted teeth as he reached for the back of his head. His fingers came away slick with red. “That’s gonna hurt.”
“Don’t move,” she commanded.
“I could not do so if I wished.” He blinked, amber eyes sharpening for a moment as they snagged on Risa’s throat. “You’re hurt.”
She shrugged his concern away. There were more pressing matters.
Like the fact that the airship was continuing to fall.
After helping him back down on the rug with a gentle hand, she left him there to moan in pain while she hurried to the cockpit and tried her best to figure out if she could fly the damn thing herself.
Buttons and knobs and levers greeted her from across a black console made of—surprise—metal. On the right was the jagged, broken end of a steering column. Beside it, a wheel wrapped in leather. Above the console, a large window looked out onto the world as it flew past in a blur.
She flipped all the switches, pressed all the buttons save for the large red one that had SELF-DESTRUCT printed beneath it.
The airship slowed and righted itself for a moment, then simply continued its nosedive.
A white stone fortress glimmered in the near distance, though the more urgent issue was the sea of sand they were plunging toward.
It would take more than button smashing to fix this. She needed a whole lot of magic to work a miracle.
The Regent’s words rang in her mind. How magic needed belief.
Well, it wasn’t like there was anything else she could do.
She struggled back into the main cabin, nearly colliding with a bench. Reaching Javi, she sank down and gathered Brunie in her lap before taking Javi’s hands in hers.
“I’m still quite upset with you, but considering we might die, I’ll put that aside for now,” she told him.