Chapter 47
Gwendolynne
We charge into the Void: me brandishing my scalpel, Conall and Heli close behind. Percy, who is tucked under my arm, squirms as we pass through the portal until I’m forced to let him go.
At first, everything is so gloomy, it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust. We’re in a sort of cave, the walls, floor, and ceiling all made of rough-hewn gray rock. Mist swirls all around, obscuring our vision, and I creep forward cautiously, swiping at it with my free hand.
When a gap finally opens up in the thick, tenacious fog…I see him.
My stomach drops.
Harrisford is bound to a chair, ropes crisscrossing over his torso. His head is bowed. I cannot tell if he’s conscious.
Behind him, wielding a blade in one hand and a pair of forceps in the other, plunging the latter into a bloodied incision at the base of Harrisford’s skull—
Is…Danny?
He’s wearing a surgical mask that obscures the lower half of his face, but I can still tell it’s him.
Danny raises his head, but too late. When he sees me, I’ve already lunged at him, my teeth bared, and pressed my scalpel to his neck.
“Get. Away. From him,” I snarl through gritted teeth.
He raises both of his gloved hands, bloodstained instruments and all. “Chan,” he says evenly. “Put the scalpel down and I’ll explain.”
“Explain what? That you kidnapped Harrisford and are—” I grapple for the words, my eyes darting to Harrisford and back. “Exactly what the fuck are you doing, Wong?”
I’d already worked out that Harrisford had been implanted with a fragment of the Source. And if Danny is operating on him, then that must mean…
“I’m removing his implant,” Danny says. His next words come out as a hiss. “Now put the scalpel down.”
I jerk my chin at him. “You first.”
Danny lets the scalpel and forceps clatter to the ground. I too drop my scalpel and take a couple of steps back.
Tearing my gaze away from Danny, I draw closer to Harrisford’s chair. I can see he’s breathing—deeply, evenly, despite the restraints around his torso—and his head is flopping down, his chin resting on his chest.
I’m close enough now that I can reach out to him. Cupping his chin, I raise his head. His eyes are closed, his face slack-jawed, and when I raise his left eyelid, the blue eye is blank. “You anesthetized him?” Involuntarily, my thumb sweeps across his jaw, stroking it.
“Of course I did,” Danny says irritably. “We surgeons aren’t as evil as you think, Chan.”
Danny’s always been a cutter more than a medic. Apparently, he’s hoping to specialize in dragon surgery.
“You’re as thick as a typical surgeon, though,” I snap. “Why have you not secured his airway? Don’t you know how obstructive his head position is?”
The cocky expression on Danny’s face falters, and he looks away and mumbles, “He’s fine. I’ve been monitoring his breathing, all right?”
I glare at Danny, incensed at his stupidity. But then again—I have to remember that Danny is Harrisford’s friend. I still don’t fully understand what’s happening, but it seems that he’s actually trying to help. “Well, go on, then. I’ll protect his airway while you finish off.”
Danny scrutinizes me for a moment, as though he’s wondering if it’s a trap. He must finally decide that it isn’t, because he moves closer, still wary.
“Are you still sterile?” I say, gesturing to Danny’s gloves with my eyes. “You haven’t touched anything?”
“No, ma’am.” I stiffen at the condescending nature of his tone but don’t say anything.
Heli, looking very solemn, peels open a fresh pair of forceps for Danny.
With both of my hands, I cradle Harrisford’s chin while Danny resumes digging around in the incision.
Harrisford’s face is pale, his long eyelashes fanned out on his upper cheeks, and I’ve never noticed this before…
but there’s a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose.
He looks young, so young, and my heart clenches at the thought of him as a boy, on the operating table, being surgically implanted with something he was too little to understand.
I’m so focused on Harrisford’s face that I don’t notice at first. Nor does Danny, who has an intense look of concentration as he fishes around in Harrisford’s flesh for the Source. It’s Conall who speaks, from the corner where he’s still clutching Nathaniel’s black box.
“What’s that noise?”
I look up and around at our surroundings.
It’s quiet at first, but getting louder—a deep rumbling that’s vibrating the mist. Danny raises his eyes, leveling a look at me.
Beads of sweat are springing out on his forehead and running down under his mask.
“It’s the portal. It’s starting to collapse.
It happens when things get too unstable. ”
The portal is about to collapse? My heart gives a lurch. “And what—that’ll trap us?”
Danny nods, using an elbow to wipe his forehead. “Yeah, until someone on the other side opens up another one. And even then, we’d need to be in the right place at the right time. The Void is a funny place…”
Panic tears through my chest. “Well, hurry up, then!”
He starts working faster, his fingers moving beneath Harrisford’s skin. I swallow, trying to tamp down the nausea that’s washing right through me. I’ve seen plenty of surgeries, of course, but it’s different when it’s someone you care about.
Because I do care about Harrisford. It may be stupid, and reckless, and for sure I’ll get my heart broken…But I can’t help it. The past few weeks have changed my opinion of him forever.
“I can’t find it.” Danny’s still looking for that goddamned Source. “I’ll have to extend the incision. It was implanted so long ago—I think it’s migrated.”
Shit. I guess it happens with microchips too.
Generally, we implant them between an animal’s shoulder blades, but movement and time can shift them elsewhere.
Sometimes we find them slipped down one leg; Conall once scanned one that had lodged itself just below a dog’s left ear. “Do it, then,” I hiss. “Quickly!”
The rumbling gets louder. Danny sweats harder. He’s muttering obscenities beneath his breath. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says. “I don’t understand why the portal’s collapsing so quickly. We normally have more time than this.”
I look at Conall in desperation. Conall’s the smart one here, the one who understands the most about Void engineering. “Why would it be collapsing?”
Conall’s mouth twists. “Not sure, Gwen. Could it be…because we brought a tether in here? When there was one in here already?”
My stomach drops. Percy. I brought Percy in, when Harrisford was already in here.
Danny splutters. “You brought a tether? A tether with a second Source? There’s only meant to be one on either side of the portal, Chan. Bringing a second one in will—”
Conall has gone deathly pale. “Short-circuit things. And it’s too late to reverse it. We have to hurry!”
I hold my breath, my heart thrashing in my chest. I’m shaking; a wave of dread expands in my body, permeating every inch of my flesh. “Hold on, Briggs,” I whisper to him. My hands are clasping both sides of his face. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Finally, Danny pulls out and gives a frustrated growl. “Fuck! I can’t find it! We’ll have to get him out and continue looking for it later.” With quick movements, Danny performs a healing spell.
Shit shit shit. My anxiety is spiking through the roof. “Should we suture the incision?”
“No point.” Danny is panting. “We don’t have time for stitches. And even the healing spell will need to be done again. It’ll all be reversed by the time we go back through the portal.”
“Going through the portal undoes magic?”
“It strips any spells, healing, enchantments…The theory is that the Void wants to reclaim the magic.”
I have to assume it makes sense, because I don’t have time to think about it. Already the rumbling has become deafening, the mist swirling around us in rapid circles. Our hair is all staticky, like it gets immediately before a lightning strike.
“Help me cut his ties,” I say to Danny, swiping my dropped scalpel off the floor and starting to saw through the ropes.
We release Harrisford, and together, we haul him up to standing, one of his arms around each of our necks. Percy winds around our legs, purring. Bits of debris from I don’t know where are starting to rain down on our heads.
Harrisford stirs as we prop him up, his head lolling to one side, his eyelids fluttering open. He blinks blearily at me, the pupils of his brown and blue eyes dilated.
“Gwendolynne,” he slurs, giving me a stupefied smile. “You…came.”
My heart stutters and I swallow. I can’t dwell on his words. There’s no time to think, no time to feel. “Hang in there, Briggs,” I say, curt. “We’re getting you out.”
Conall and Heloise fling themselves out of the portal as the ground judders and more fragments of rock plummet down upon our heads. Holding himself low to the ground, his tail streaming behind him, Percy too sprints toward the opening and dives through it.
Supporting Harrisford, Danny and I stumble closer, aiming for the tear.
“Wait.” Danny stops just before we go through. “We need a Source on both sides to keep it open.”
I whip my head around to look at him, over the top of Harrisford’s head. “We what? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”
He reddens. “I forgot. I was so focused on rescuing Briggs.”
My throat is so thick, my chest so tight, that I feel like I can barely form words. “But…the Source. It’s still in Harrisford…” I trail off, my mouth going dry. The only other bit of Source I know of is inside Percy.
Danny gives me a rueful look. “Yeah. If we’d got it out, we could’ve left it here, as the tether.”
Harrisford scrunches his eyebrows in confusion, and says to Danny, his voice thick, “You never got my Source out?”
“Sorry, mate, couldn’t find it. Must’ve migrated.”
“Well, shit.” He sags against me. “Fucking dragon’s balls.”
There’s a loud bang, and something crashes to the ground, startling us. Panicking, I ask, “What’ll happen if he doesn’t stay behind?”
“If he goes through before us, the portal will collapse and trap us here,” Danny says, distraught. “And if we go first, and he tries to follow”—he grimaces—“the portal will collapse on him as he’s passing through.”
All the blood drains from my face. “It’ll kill him?”
“Possibly.” Danny swallows. “Probably.”
God-fucking-dammit. My heart races and my limbs turn to jelly and it’s a miracle I even manage to keep Harrisford propped up.
“This can’t be the only option.” It can’t be, it can’t be.
My brain scrambles to find something—anything—that will solve this problem.
But nothing comes to mind. This isn’t like studying, where every question has a logical solution. I cannot think of a single answer.
I heave a shuddering breath, in and out. My chest is so tight, it feels like it could explode. For once in my life I am…stumped.
And then Harrisford is there, holding me up. He has let go of Danny and has taken my face in both hands, gripping it.
“Gwendolynne,” he says, and he seems more lucid than he has this whole time. “You need to leave—”
“What?” I blink at him, distracted; I’m still trying to figure out how to fix this.
His fingers dig into the swell of my cheeks. “You have to go, love, you—”
He pauses, because another deep rumble rolls through us, shaking the ground. When it finishes, he speaks to Danny but keeps his eyes locked on me. “Danny, take Gwendolynne out. Please.”
It finally clicks in my brain—what he’s saying. My fingers bunch in Harrisford’s shirt. “No.” I tighten my grip on him.
Danny, who’s lingering near the portal, uncertain, speaks up. “Come on, Gwen, we need to go—”
“You go!” I’m screaming at Danny, but all I can see, all I can focus on, is Harrisford.
Something detaches from the ceiling and crashes to the ground, narrowly missing our heads. Harrisford lets go of my face and throws his arms around me, shielding me—just as he once shielded me from the flaming qílín.
When I blink my eyes open again, we’re covered in dust. My head is still tucked beneath Harrisford’s chin, his hand pressing the back of my head.
When he speaks, it’s in a voice of deadly calm that rumbles right through his chest. “Wong. Go on. Get out of here.”
Danny edges toward the opening. He already has one leg out. Yet still, he hesitates. “You sure?”
“Yes. But, if you can…hold the portal, will you?” Harrisford’s arms tighten around me. “I’ve just got to say goodbye to my girl.”