29. A Safe Place
A Safe Place
“Oh my goddess!” Miranda gasped when she saw me, her eyes widening as she flung her dormitory door the rest of the way open. When she’d first answered my knock, her expression appeared stony, her jaw hard.
All of that fell away the instant she really looked at me.
She instantly paled, her eyes widening.
“Leda!” she burst out in a panic. “What’s happened? What in the gods happened to you?”
She grabbed my arm and yanked me all the way into the room.
“JOLIE!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
I fought to speak past the vibration still hurting my jaw and tongue.
I wanted to reassure her, to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t manage to get out more than a few gasping breaths.
My body still felt like a fuse box that had shorted out.
I’d barely made it up to my old floor and room, and now that I was here, I could tell I was close to collapse.
I had no idea how I must look.
I had to conclude from their reactions it must be bad.
I’d ended my sloppily-cast invisibility spell only once I stood outside their door, and only after making certain I couldn’t see anyone in visual range from the aether.
My physical vision came back the next instant.
I just stood there, fighting to get air in my lungs while Miranda slammed the door shut behind me.
She used a quick, practiced spell to lock the door, and I heard the bolt slide into place.
When my eyes focused on the familiar common space, the same one I’d shared with Jolie and Miranda for the first half of the year, I flinched in surprise to see three more sets of eyes staring at me from the blue velvet couch.
Draken stood up first, followed by Nyx, and finally Luc.
Draken stared at me, his eyes wide in shock as he absorbed my appearance.
“Leda,” he said, at a loss. He paled as much as Miranda. “What in the gods––”
Yes, I must have looked bad.
I must have looked really, really bad.
Seeing all of their shocked faces, I realized I must look significantly worse than I’d realized.
I knew I was shaking violently still. I fought against the shaking but that only seemed to make it worse, so I tried to relax, but that didn’t seem to help either.
My head hurt. My tongue was swollen, making me think I must have bit down on it at some point following the repeated lightning spells, possibly multiple times.
My arm was covered in blood from the copper knives Norrick threw at me.
Then Jolie was there, and her soothing but authoritative voice filled my ears.
“Right. Pick her up. We need to lay her down somewhere,” she instructed someone. “Yes. In there will do. Luc, come here and help him…”
Draken and Luc were on either side of me, then.
They lifted me up, and I felt my muscles go entirely limp in relief. I sucked in a breath when one of them, Luc, I think, accidentally bumped my hurt arm. Tears instantly stung my eyes while I bit my tongue, trying not to scream.
A minute or so later, I was being carefully placed on top of something soft and giving. I found myself looking up at a ceiling that was achingly familiar.
Of course. They’d brought me into my old room. I’d never thought to ask if they ever got a new roommate to replace me.
Apparently they hadn’t.
I could have cried at the sheer relief of lying down somewhere safe.
My arm still felt like it was on fire. There was definitely something wrong with my hand and wrist. My head pounded like it was being hit with an iron mallet, and my chest and ribs hurt so badly every breath felt like being cut open with a nine-inch blade.
My good hand was twitching, still sparking with electricity, and one of my feet and legs.
I couldn’t control my face, or my heart rate, which still felt on the verge of a heart attack.
I still thought I might die, but I felt so relieved, tears began running down my face.
That was even before Jolie and Luc began murmuring incantations over me, performing mudras that went with the healing and pain-relief spells. Nyx murmured her own series of spells in the second round, until I couldn’t pull their voices or the subtle sensations apart.
I felt their combined magic seeping into and warming my skin, and gradually unclenching my muscles. Even my bones hurt, but everything they were doing was slowly, very slowly, making me feel better.
“She’s got at least two broken ribs,” Jolie muttered, her hand passing over my chest. “Someone kicked her, hard. Her left wrist appears to be broken, too, and her shoulder is out of the socket. But the worst damage is from the spells.”
“L-l-lightning,” I stammered with an effort. “T-th-three of them.” I fought to think. “Maybe f-f-four. F-f-five?”
I realized I’d lost count. I wasn’t sure how many it had been.
My teeth, tongue, and lips were numb.
I wasn’t cold, but my teeth were chattering.
I don’t think I fully realized until then, just how much effort it had taken me to get to their door.
I struggled to breathe now, fighting to relax.
Some part of me was still sparking and twitching in pure survival mode.
Now that I wasn’t actively using all my remaining strength to keep my muscles and legs moving, the emotional kickback was intense.
Everything Jolie and the others were doing helped tremendously, of course. It made me wonder if that dark, quiet presence had been with me as I crawled up the hill and into Valarian, then all the way up the back staircase to my old floor.
It seemed impossible I could have made it on my own.
I’d managed to make myself invisible before I crawled up that hill, after making sure I could navigate with my magic, using the Aether space.
It was a bit like having on infrared glasses, and I’d struggled to get into the back of Valarian without running into anyone, and struggled even more to get up the stairs, hiding against the wall a few times.
I’d made myself do it anyway.
I was genuinely afraid I’d be arrested for murder.
Don’t worry about that now. The familiar voice rose in my mind, shocking me, then making my eyes burn, my throat close.
I reached for him without thought, and his magic wound into mine.
Close your eyes, he murmured, and I saw his light hand wrapped around mind.
Try to relax. Don’t strain your heart any more than it is.
I did close my eyes, but my mind couldn’t relax.
“Hold it there,” Jolie said, her voice distracted.
Luc held my arm up, and I hissed in a breath, clenching my jaw.
Ignore it, the voice in my head murmured. Focus on me.
I tried to, but it was almost impossible.
I let out a scream when the joint slid back into the socket, and I felt Luc’s hands shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my face. He kissed my forehead and stroked my hair again. “I’m so sorry, Leda.”
I couldn’t answer him, but just lay there gasping while Jolie murmured more incantations over my shoulder and arm.
I’d killed them.
I’d as good as killed them.
I had no idea where the royals had gone who’d attacked me.
If you did, you did them a favor, Bones growled in my head. You’re not going to prison for this, Leda, he vowed. No one’s taking you to the Pyramid. I’ll kill anyone who tries.
I nodded, wanting to believe him.
I remembered the scene I’d found at the base of that grassy slope when I first opened my eyes.
I’d thought at first I’d been the one who’d moved.
I thought that being I’d made the pact with…
that presence… whatever it had been… phased me somewhere else.
But as soon as I’d looked around, I’d known that wasn’t it.
I hadn’t been the one to move.
Visible scorch marks had been left behind, darkening the grass where Norrick had fallen from my bloodfyre curse.
Fresh blood dripped from crushed grass stalks, pooling on the dirt in at least three different spots around the clearing.
Blood spatter covered at least a third of the level area where we’d all been fighting.
Even for five large mages, it was a lot of blood.
Too much blood.
None of that blood had dried yet. It hadn’t even coagulated.
It also wasn’t mine.
The grass all around me had been trampled and bent.
A long line of flattened grass led from my sandaled feet to the very bottom of the slope. It was from Mordopast dragging me across the flat to where Scar, Christian, and Pants had been clustered around Norrick, trying to heal him and calm him down.
Just relax, Bones murmured quietly. I’m doing what I can with your magic, but Jolie knows what she’s doing. She’ll be able to fix enough to get you to the hospital, at least.
Pain stabbed at me, catching my breath.
It took another second for me to realize it was his.
I couldn’t miss the rage seething through his aura, either.
A number of conflicting emotions flickered around him the longer I felt him there.
Worry eclipsed the anger, then rippled back into fear, then frustration, then more anger, which gradually blossomed into homicidal rage.
I could feel him holding back as much as he could, even as his magic wound deeper into mine.
Was that you? I whispered back. Did you take care of them?
A silence fell between us.
In it, I could see him feeling all over me, assuring himself I was all right.
His light hand still held mine.
No, he thought at me. He hesitated, then added, I couldn’t get to you, Leda. I wasn’t able to see anything, not until the very end. Malefic changed the shielding over the dungeon about a month ago. I can’t get to you at all while I’m in there.
I nodded to myself, thinking.
That explained at least some of why I hadn’t felt him much in dreams lately.
After I broke into the Black Tower, his father changed the locks.
You’re outside it now? I asked. The dungeon, I mean?
Yes, he thought back at once. His emotions still felt shielded. I scared the fuck out of your brother. I’ll try to get a message to him in a minute. Let him know you’re going to be okay.
How did you know anything was wrong? I asked, puzzled.
Another silence fell, but it was shorter.
I felt it, in the distance. A denser anguish rose in his magic, mixed with grief, and an anger that heated my skin. I heard you screaming for me. I heard you screaming for everyone, and no one fucking answering. I couldn’t get to you. I couldn’t answer.
I winced, but only nodded.
When I opened my eyes, I found Jolie looking down at me.
She was sat next to me on the mattress, mixing some kind of elixir in a tube. She’d already put a different substance all over my wrist, and the skin and flesh and bone there was burning in a not-unpleasant way.
Draken sat on my other side, and Nyx was down by my feet. All three of them were working, but Jolie’s eyes remained focused directly on mine.
She leaned down toward me then, and spoke in my ear.
“Is that him?” she asked, soft. “Just now? With you?”
She raised her head, looking down at me, one eyebrow quirked.
I hesitated, then gave a quick nod.
Her lips twitched perceptibly, not quite a smile.
Her voice switched back to businesslike when she raised it, speaking in her regular voice.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said, and I distinctly got the impression she was speaking to Bones as much as me.
“I did three different diagnostics and I didn’t see anything that would cause permanent damage.
We’ll walk you down to the hospital as soon as I’ve got you stabilized, just to make sure. ”
Her eyes shone a little brighter. “You’ll be sore. And probably have a headache for a few days. And you need to take it easy with your shoulder and wrist until the bones and joints are completely healed. But you don’t need to worry, okay?”
I nodded, feeling my throat close.
Jolie smiled at me, and gripped my good wrist in a tight squeeze.
Tell her thanks, Bones thought at me. Later, I mean. If you want.
She’s worried about you, I told him quietly.
He scoffed. She’s worried about you, he corrected me.
She’s taking you to the hospital to have them double-check her spell and potion work.
Not to reassure me. His thoughts lowered to a grumble.
She thinks I’m a gods-damned control freak.
She keeps trying to shoo me out of your magic, and told me at least twice I’m being rude and controlling.
I snorted a little, and coughed.
Draken look over, along with Nyx and Luc, who’d just rejoined them on the bed.
Miranda was still in the kitchen, probably making all of us tea.
“You okay?” Luc asked, looking up from where he’d finished casting a quick diagnostic spell of his own. “Do you want me to check your lungs again?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
From wherever he was, on the other side of England, Bones scoffed.
I couldn’t help feeling his relief, though.