Chapter Twelve
Inches. That was how close I came to losing him.
A hand’s span apart in either direction, and the damage would have been worse.
Possibly much worse. And it had been my fault.
The thing had panicked because my rogue power had nearly…
I don’t know what my power had meant to do to it.
All I did know was that a gypsy potion wasn’t meant to do what mine had done.
What was more: after replaying the events over and over through my mind, I was fairly sure the thing lunging for the bat had been survival instinct, not malicious intent.
It had seen that vapor creature and armed itself.
I’d nearly lost Andre. On accident.
I stared at my fingers numbly as I waited for an update from the doctor.
So far, it looked like Andre only had a concussion.
If the thing in Finn’s bedroom had superhuman strength, it could have caved Andre’s skull in with that bat.
Fortune had been on my side. Well, and on Andre’s too.
The bat had simply glanced off Andre’s skull instead of impacting head-on.
If we hadn’t gotten lucky, Andre might have been looking at brain damage.
My nails were short now, after an incident had torn a few down to the quick.
My fingers weren’t shapely and tipped with a manicure like Wanda’s.
The mess beneath the nails had been part of the brewing process.
I took pride in the work I did with my hands.
Now my opinion of them had soured. How could my hands have turned traitor and hurt someone I loved?
A figure moved in my periphery, and I spun instinctively in their direction.
I thoroughly expected to see the short, slowly balding Dr. Green rounding the corner.
But the figure that stepped into the waiting room was a hell of a lot taller than the good doctor.
Between the long leather coat he wore, the fringe of dark hair that framed his face, and the steely gray of his eyes, he looked like a modern day cowboy just minutes from high noon.
His hands moved more slowly and cautiously than the rest of him, as though always on the lookout for danger.
It was a good thing he wasn’t in possession of a firearm.
His magic was dangerous enough without adding bullets to his arsenal.
“Maverick?” I croaked.
I expected him to wince at the sound of my voice.
I’d been crying off and on since Finn and I had arrived here.
Finn had volunteered to grab snacks from the vending machine during the most recent jag.
I suspected he was waiting until the coast was clear and I had my tears under control again.
I couldn’t blame him. Watching someone you care about go to pieces was a truly helpless experience.
Maverick nodded in greeting. “You look like hell, Poppy.”
“I feel worse.”
“Have you slept at all?”
I shook my head with a grimace. “I think I got about an hour before things went south. I’ve just been waiting for updates. The CT was apparently backed up.”
I’d wanted to find the tech on duty and shake them until they provided prompt service. Watching Andre suffer had been almost more than I could bear. If Finn hadn’t been present, I was sure I’d have been a true wreck.
“I’d tell you to go home and get some sleep, but I know you’ll ignore me. So let’s skip the argument. Tally and I need your statement.”
I glanced over his shoulder, noting a conspicuously absent faerie queen. It would be hard to miss her even in her human glamour. Taliyah’s attitude entered a room before she did. I’d have felt the crackle of her magic in the air before she ever stepped into view.
“Tally’s on the phone,” Maverick explained.
“Priss broke curfew again. She needs a ride home. I’m sending Astrid to collect her.
I’m also going to have Astrid look after Finn until dawn.
Finn needs to sleep, even if you don’t plan to.
I know you’ll rest easier if you know Finn’s got a babysitter, even if he doesn’t technically need one. ”
“Just tell him Astrid wanted to visit. He’s sixteen—he won’t take well to being told he has a babysitter.”
Maverick nodded. “Noted.”
If we both hadn’t been happily taken, I might have kissed Maverick for that consideration.
It wasn’t just that he was thinking of me, which was a huge step up from where he’d started when we met.
It was that he’d grown enough as a person to put others before himself on the occasions when it truly mattered.
It didn’t stop him from being a grumpy asshole most of the time, but he was our grumpy asshole.
But instead of a kiss, he ended up with an armful of grateful, crying gypsy and seemed utterly flummoxed about what to do.
He settled for an awkward patting of my back.
“Thank you so much,” I cried into his shoulder. “And tell Astrid I said thank you as well.”
“Right,” Maverick answered, giving my shoulder another awkward pat. “You’re... erm... welcome, I guess.”
Maverick’s reply was almost cute, paired with the expression on his face. He looked like he was left floundering when anyone was anything close to kind to him. It was nice to think he thought of me as kind. Especially now that my magic had turned traitor and hurt someone I loved.
Maverick was saved from further emotional outbursts by the arrival of his wife.
Taliyah’s power preceded her, a draft of chill air subtle enough that no mundane would catch it.
But I wasn’t a mundane anymore. Not really.
I’d undergone some kind of metamorphosis when I’d joined Wanda’s coven.
I wasn’t sure what I was now, but human didn’t feel like it applied any longer.
Taliyah managed not to storm into the room trailing her bad mood like a storm.
I knew the pinched, concerned expression she wore.
I’d worn it a lot around Finn lately, because I was worried about him.
Worried that somehow I’d hurt him with my power next.
If I could have sworn off the alchemy entirely, I would have, just on principle.
Because now it was a real thing. Now it was dangerous.
More so than before. It had gotten Andre hurt.
Some of Taliyah’s bad mood leached away when she took stock of me. Her rigid posture relaxed into her usual ready stance. She somehow managed to make the move look fluid and artful, despite her somewhat angular proportions.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“So I’ve been told,” I said with a bitter laugh. “More than once. I don’t really care, though. I just want to know how Andre is.”
“A little faerie on the cleaning service might have let slip that he’s headed to a room for observation. I can’t give you a number, but we both know they wouldn’t assign him a room if he was still in trouble.”
Something in my guts unclenched, and I could breathe a little easier. I gave her a grateful nod. Tears followed not long after. I had to sink into a chair to get a grip on myself.
“Well, shit,” Tally said, dropping into the chair next to mine.
The arm she slung around me felt as improbable as Maverick hugging me back or, rather, awkwardly patting my shoulder repeatedly.
Neither one of them were what you’d call the emotional sort.
Most of the time they wouldn’t even be considered friendly.
It was part of the reason it had taken the two of them to act on the tension between them that everyone else had spied from a mile away.
“I’m okay,” I sniffled, voice thick with the effort it took not to sob. “I’m... I’m happy he’s okay. Just give me a second.”
I felt ridiculous, going to pieces in front of Taliyah and Maverick. I couldn’t think of a pair less equipped for an emotional emergency than these two. But maybe that was exactly what they needed.
“Shh,” Tally said. “It’s okay, Poppy. I promise. If I thought things were worse, I’d storm in there myself and put him in an animated sleep. I can do those sorts of things now. But he’s going to be fine. Concussions suck, but on the whole they aren’t usually life-threatening.”
I knew she was right. Knew in the logical part of my brain that I’d gotten the best possible outcome. But it still wasn’t enough. I’d hurt Andre.
“It’s my fault,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “It was my magic that knocked the bat off course. If I hadn’t...”
If I hadn’t thrown the potion. If I hadn’t let Andre fight the thing in the first place. If I’d been stronger, smarter, faster, or hell more normal I might have stopped what had happened.
Maverick rolled his eyes. “Why do I find that hard to buy? You need bad attitude to perform a malicious spell, Poppy. I doubt you have even two ounces of ill-will in your pretty blonde head. Enough to cast an itching hex, maybe, but anything hard core? No. I’d believe Astrid capable of it before you. ”
“But I did it,” I argued, shaking my head as I looked up at him.
“I threw a potion at the thing and it just... it kind of went AWOL and I couldn’t control it.
The only other time I’ve seen something like that was when Wanda was still a Blood Witch.
” I whispered that last bit. “The point is that whatever I’m doing or becoming…
it isn’t natural. It’s screwing with fate. I shouldn’t have these powers at all.”
If I hadn’t joined the coven. If I hadn’t become an honorary witch. If I hadn’t become best friends with the head witch in charge. Would it have stopped me from becoming an alchemist? Or would I just have been left to flounder when the power came online in a few decades?
Maverick gave me a hard look. “But you have them, and there’s no changing that. You had an accident. It happens to the best of us. You don’t want to know how badly Wanda bungled spells in the beginning. She wasn’t just bad at potions back then.”
“Really?” I couldn’t imagine Wanda being bad at spells. Even if yes, she was horrifyingly bad at potion making.