Chapter Thirty-Three #2
She tripped over her own feet as she ran back to her bedroom, knocking her knee against the door as she reached for her phone. She knew she should alert the wardsmiths first, but there was only one person she wanted by her side right now. There was always only one person she was going to call.
—
It took Arthur a moment to realize that the horrible, insistent buzzing sound wasn’t coming from the inside of his head.
He wasn’t sure what it was that had finally cut through the hazy fog that surrounded his brain, but something had woken him up and made him aware of his pounding headache.
He groaned, fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand, when his hand hit his phone, buzzing relentlessly.
He flipped it open and held it close to his face so he could see the words flashing across the screen: Maggie Linden, PhD.
“Fuck,” he said, hitting the answer button.
“Maggie?” he rasped, his voice scratchy and unused.
She was frantic. “Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
“I’m in bed, Maggie.” For the first time, he felt angry at her. She may be able to just shake off the weeks they’d spent together, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But the anger faded when he heard the unmistakable screech of a banshee in the background, far closer than it should have been.
“I’ve been calling you for hours. You need to get to Hawthorn right now. It’s the pall.”
“What happened?” Finally, he found his glasses and the room came into focus as he searched for pants and a shirt.
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembled, and he hated how far away he was, with every thought clouded by fog. He was exhausted. Spent. “I was at home and the ground shook. There was a loud crack that sounded like it was right outside my window, but it came from Ilex Hall.”
“Shit,” Arthur cursed. “The decoction isn’t ready.” He threw his keys into his pocket, put his hand over the receiver, and yelled down the hallway. “Ror!”
“It has to be. Dr. Silva said that it has reached ninety-eight percent efficacy, and we’re going to have to take our chances. How soon can you get here? I called the wardsmith, but…” She hesitated. “I need you here, Arthur.”
Arthur’s brain was too foggy with exhaustion and panic to feel anything about what she said.
He flipped his wrist around to look at his watch.
It was seven in the morning, so there wouldn’t be much traffic.
He could do it in thirty-five minutes if he hurried.
After he told Maggie, she said, “I’ll wait for you under the hawthorn. ” And then she hung up the phone.
“Ror!” Arthur called again. Gods below, where was his brother? Finally, Rory stuck his head inside the front screen door, looking remarkably alert for someone who had stayed up just as late as Arthur and had just as many beers. “Do you have work today?”
“No, I’m working this weekend.”
“Is Pop or Lane around? Can they watch Simon?” Simon, always an early riser, was drawing on the sidewalk out front with chalk, covering everything in fake runes and shouting nonsense Diadhan spells.
“Mom’s watching him later today anyway. We just need to walk over. What happened?”
“There’s an emergency at the school, and I need you to come with me. I’ll explain on the way there.” He was already jumping into his truck while Rory scooped up Simon without hesitation.
“Special treat! We get to ride in the back!” He deposited Simon over the side of the truck bed and then hopped in, hitting the cab so Arthur knew he could start driving.
Lane’s house was only two blocks away, but he still drove at a snail’s pace until he arrived at the bungalow that looked remarkably like his father’s, except its garden beds were beautifully manicured with an assortment of colorful flowers.
The collection of discarded baseballs and lawn toys was exactly the same, though.
Rory dropped Simon off in record time, waving to Lane, who stood watching her son leave from the front porch, and then climbed back into the cab.
When they finally got onto the marshy road that connected Atlantia and Galloway, Arthur began to tell Rory everything.
By the time they were halfway to Hawthorn, Rory was yelling. “Above and below, Artie, why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone about the pall?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“For months! You’ve been trying to solve this on your own when…”
“I’ve had Maggie,” he said feebly. “I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.” Rory shook his head, staring out the window with a hard set to his jaw.
The closer they got to Hawthorn, the darker the sky became.
Atlantia’s summer-blue, sunny weather turned into a biting fall gloom, with low-hanging dark clouds and a misty rain that was cold enough to chill.
Arthur cursed. For months, the changes to the weather had been contained to the one mile around the school, but here they were, still ten miles away, and it looked like a dreary November evening.
“Has it been this bad?” Rory asked, and Arthur just shook his head.
Whatever fog had lingered in his brain thanks to his hangover was gone as he and Rory jogged around Ilex Hall toward the hawthorn tree.
Maggie was where she promised she’d be, her hair damp and sticking to her forehead.
Dahlia and Dr. Silva were with her, pouring the gloaming creeper decoction into a vat of paint.
The mixture was a deep, rich purple, but he knew it should have had at least another twelve hours to settle before they used it.
He hoped it would be enough to reverse the pall.
Outside of Ilex Hall, it was clear that the situation inside had deteriorated.
The lights inside the entire building were blinking, casting eerie shadows on the lawn, and wispy wraiths were skating around the edges of the light.
A few bricks had come dislodged from Ilex Hall’s facade and scattered on the lawn where they’d fallen.
On the third floor, clouds of lavender pall pressed up against the windows so hard, Arthur was afraid they might shatter, taking out the runes he’d carefully redrawn with Maggie after graduation.
If this monstrous pall got out…he didn’t want to think about what would happen.
When Maggie looked up from the paint and noticed him coming toward them, all he could see was her relief.
Her shoulders sagged, and her hand came up to her chest. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying, and all he wanted to do was go to her and stand next to her, to envelop her in an embrace that would reassure her.
Instead, he stayed on the other side of the picnic table even though it killed him.
“I brought Rory to help out,” he said, as if that weren’t obvious. Rory was already next to Dahlia, holding empty paint pens while Dahlia filled them carefully.
Maggie nodded absentmindedly. “Jim is here, too. He’s getting more supplies and then he’s going to stand at the south stair with Dr. Chen as backup. Dahlia was going to stand at the north stair door after we go in. Can Rory stay with her?”
“Of course,” Rory said.
There was so much Arthur wanted to say. He needed to know if she was okay, if she had eaten, if she had slept.
“I’m sorry,” he said, like it was meant for the entire group of people gathered there, but he didn’t go on until Maggie looked at him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone right away.
” It wasn’t the real thing he wanted to apologize for, but it was an apology she needed to hear all the same.
She just nodded, going back to the clipboard in front of her. When they finished filling the pens a moment later, there was nothing left to wait for. “I’ll stay out here,” Dr. Silva said. “Wardsmiths are on their way, and if we need additional backup, I’ll call for it.”