Chapter 33 #2
She felt no shame about kissing Nicholas, and didn’t care if the true ladies would be scandalized. All she cared about was soaking in as much of the wonder of being with him as she could before the month ended, for end it must.
Nicholas hadn’t changed his stance on marriage, which was for the best. Sadie could trust in having a few weeks with him without consequence, but she knew better than to hope for a long-term arrangement.
Thanks to her power, long-term was never an option for her in any aspect of her life.
She’d focus on the short-term and enjoy it, instead.
“You’re going into the forest today?” she confirmed when they drew apart.
“Yes. I think I know where the tear might be, and the journal from my ancestor gives enough hints that I think I can recognize it if it is there. If I find it, I’ll put up a ward to prevent anyone passing through from getting too close, and then we can move on to figuring out how to lure the demon out there. ”
“How long will you be gone?”
“With any luck, only a few hours. The spot I’m thinking of is about an hour away, and hopefully it won’t take too long to search the area.” Nicholas ran his hands down her arms and squeezed her hands. “You are back in the brewing room today?”
“Yes, I want to make a few more general healing potions.”
“I’ll see you at supper, then.”
Sadie reluctantly stepped back. She’d much rather retreat to Nick’s room, where they’d spend the morning lost in pleasure instead of worry, but she’d never suggest it. Not when every delay meant more opportunities for the demon to cause harm.
“Until supper. Stay safe.”
“You too, Sadie.”
They turned and went their separate ways, but Sadie didn’t make it to the brewing room before she heard a scream from the direction Nicholas had gone. She spun around.
Not him.
The scream wasn’t him.
It had been a woman.
The realization made Sadie feel at once both relieved and disgusted with herself for that relief.
She made it two steps before spinning back around. Better to get the potions first. She ran to the brewing room and shoved two of every type of potion she had made into a convenient bowl, then ran for where the scream had originated.
She found Nicholas at the foot of the main staircase, crouched next to Helen. The images the demon had shared with Abigail at supper a few evenings prior flashed back through Sadie’s mind. Helen at the base of the stairs, her neck broken.
No. Sadie forced herself to notice the differences in the tableau in front of her compared to the demon’s vision. Helen was sitting on the bottom step, not lying on the ground. She was sniffling, and cradling her arm against her chest as Nicholas inspected it, but definitely alive.
Nicholas looked up at that instant. “Sadie, I think her wrist is broken. Do you have a healing potion for that?”
She sorted through the jumble of vials in the bowl and grabbed one that was nearly the same shade of blue as Nicholas’s standard wards. She handed it to him. “This will help with broken bones, but if it is a sprain, a different potion will work better.”
“She also twisted her ankle at the least.”
“Give her that one first; if there isn’t a break, it won’t hurt.” Sadie grabbed a mustard-yellow potion while Nicholas uncorked the first and offered it to Helen.
Helen accepted it and downed the potion without hesitation. Then she held her hand out to Sadie. Sadie uncorked the vial in her hand and passed it over. Then she pulled out the green healing potion people were most familiar with.
Helen saw it and grabbed it before Sadie could open the bottle. She realized she couldn’t get it open herself and nearly sobbed. Nicholas plucked the cork free, and Helen tossed back the general healing potion that everyone used for its pain-relief properties.
Helen sighed. “Oh, that is a strong potion. I can feel it taking effect already.”
“We still need to set your wrist if it is indeed broken,” Sadie pointed out. She should have started with the pain potion, she realized. She had only ever made potions to sell previously; she hadn’t needed to administer them. She hadn’t even thought to offer the pain potion first.
“I’ll send for the doctor from Valway,” a man she recognized as the manor’s butler announced.
For the first time, Sadie noticed just how many people were in the foyer with them.
She wasn’t sure if she had overlooked them because of the horror of thinking Helen might have fallen to her death or if it was because Sadie was finally learning to control her telepathy enough that crowds didn’t generate a buzz in her mind.
She needed to loosen her control over her magic, though, to scan for the demon.
It was bad having it in the manor with them, but letting it get loose to Valway, and then who knew where would be worse.
She turned to the butler. “I’ll come with you and tell whomever you send which potions I used so the doctor knows. ”
Sadie? Nicholas’s mental voice slipped inside her mind now that her shields were lowered. Is something wrong?
I want to make sure the demon doesn’t sneak to Valway.
I think it was in Helen’s maid at the top of the stairs and she ran after pushing her, but good idea.
Sadie blanched. She was at the top of the stairs? And she only broke her wrist and maybe twisted an ankle?
Nicholas’s response was delayed as he addressed his butler. “Send Greggs. He can use my horse in order to get there faster. Sadie will go with him to the stable and explain the potions while he saddles up.”
I was right at the foot of the stairs when it happened. I caught her with a ward only a few steps from the top, but I can’t make my wards soft and she hit it at an awkward angle.
Sadie heard the self-reproach in Nicholas’s mental tone and paused before following the butler and Timmons out of the foyer. Nicholas, she could have died. That a broken wrist is the worst of her worries is thanks to you. You reacted quickly and saved her. Remember that.
She didn’t think he meant for her to catch the thought that followed as she walked away, but she heard it anyway. But is it too little, too late at this point?