Quinn
Tobias sank to his knees, his dead weight dragging me down along with him. It was my turn to wrap my arms around him, his sweat damp hair too hot against my skin as his head fell against my chest. Dread coiled in my gut, my scream trapped behind clenched teeth.
I couldn’t feel him.
He shouldn’t have been able to fix the gateway home—shouldn’t have had any access to his magic at all, not when the virus stripped everyone else of their power almost immediately. Whatever magic he had left was gone now though and it had finally allowed the fog to take hold.
Both parts of my magic streamed into him, trying to keep him stable. Akeno ran forward, eyes wide with fear, as more Solearan soldiers I recognized rushed through the mirror, swords in hand.
“Yael called us for backup,” he gasped. “What can I do?”
I pointed at the open case that held the vial needed to fix this. “We need to replicate that cure, and quickly. Eva and Pari need it as soon as possible, as well as all the infected being treated in the Enclave. And Tobias—”
A cruel laugh cut me off. Blood gleamed on Silvius’s teeth as he smiled at me.
“The cure won’t help him,” he sneered.
Terror clogged my throat, even as I forced my words past it. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. The cure won’t work on him.” Silvius leaned forward, one hand tightening around the bars that caged him. “I made sure of that.”
The look in his eyes was worse than malice. It was pride. Pure, callous delight mixed with heartless indifference to the suffering he had caused.
I stopped breathing. “What did you do to him?”
“It’s a strain created to thwart the cure we made together, my dear.” Silvius’s voice was weak but triumphant. “You may have beaten me, but I’ll take solace in the fact that my favorite test subject won’t survive this. At least not as he was.”
No.
Dolion picked up the case, his hands shaking. “You can’t trust anything he says.”
“Try it,” Silvius urged. “You’ll see soon that it won’t save him.”
I stared at Silvius, trying to determine if what he said was true or if this was one last trick. Finally, I turned back to the others. “Between that vial and our research, we should have everything we need to make more.”
“I’ll handle it,” Dolion said from behind me.
I turned to find him clutching the satchel that held our research.
Two Solearan soldiers helped Queen Sariyah to her feet, who already looked markedly better.
“I’ll create more for everyone who needs it, even if I have to put the entire research ward to work on it, and test dosage levels between the strains.
” He glanced over to the cage where a few of the guards wandered aimlessly.
One stared blankly at the wall in front of him.
“Maybe we can even make it work for them.”
The cure had worked for her. The cure worked.
Now I needed it to work for him.
“We need to get everyone out of here,” I stammered. “I almost forgot the mist…Silvius’s failsafe for intruders…”
Queen Sariyah brushed the guards helping her off before imperiously smoothing her skirts.
“I’ll keep the mist at bay. And make sure there aren’t any poor souls left trapped in here before we depart.
” She turned to Dolion. “Use whatever resources you need to get that cure distributed and administered quickly.”
“We need to get Tobias somewhere we can monitor him.” Only the feeling of his chest rising against my hand with each breath kept my voice calm. Tobias didn’t have time to waste when every second could mean the difference
Thorin stepped out from behind Akeno. “Take him back to Soleara. Take him home. We’ll help you.”
Home.
But it wouldn’t be home anymore, not if I didn’t save him.
“And Silvius?”
He glared at us from behind the bars. His hands clawed at his collar, yanking at it as if it were strangling him—frantically fighting against his own cruel invention.
Queen Sariyah cleared her throat. “Leave him to me. After what he put my people through, he’ll spend the rest of his days in a dark cell after we force the names of his collaborators from him.”
A fitting end. Silvius’s eyes had grown round with terror, and I allowed myself one last, smug look in his direction. He deserved to suffer for what he done.
If his fate was a cold, dark cell, I hoped he lived a long, long time.
?
Tobias still hadn’t woken up.
Dolion had long since delivered the cure through the mirror in Soleara before racing back to Mayim. All I could do was wait…and destroy the syringe I used to inject Tobias with the miracle we had created together, not wanting him to see it when he woke up.
I hadn’t yet left Tobias’s bedside to change from my bloody clothes when Marin had sent a message with an update: Queen Sariyah’s army of healers had been dispatched to administer it to everyone infected, including Eva.
She and Bash would soon be woken from their stasis.
Rivan had sent a missive to confirm that the healers had treated Pari as well, though she also hadn’t woken up.
Queen Sariyah seemed to have no lasting effects from the virus, though that was hardly a baseline as she was one of the last to be infected and the first to be given the cure.
But it gave me hope. She had sent me a personal note confirming the infected patients at the Enclave had also received the cure—and made me promise I would keep her updated about Tobias’s recovery.
I could only pray the cure had reached them all in time to make a difference.
Try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about Silvius’s promise that I couldn’t save Tobias.
Maybe it was an empty threat—the final attempt at hurting us now that he was out of options to do so.
But if Silvius had told the truth, I hoped the cure’s imbued magic would be enough to eradicate the fog, even if Silvius had successfully mutated the virus to be resistant to our cure.
It had affected him differently. Either Tobias was oddly resistant to the virus’s effects or the blood magic I used to suppress the virus’s initial symptoms had delayed them. It didn’t explain why he was able to use his magic to fix the mirror when it should have been completely blocked.
Nor did it explain why he hadn’t succumbed to the fog until his light was completely drained.
Marin showed up as the day faded into darkness, bringing food I barely touched.
“Eva’s showing enough improvement that we took them out of stasis, though neither she nor Bash have woken up yet,” Marin said as she gently washed some dried blood I missed from behind Tobias’s ear. “What you created is a miracle.”
Science had a habit of producing those.
I absentmindedly stroked my thumb up and down Tobias’s hand. “Any word from Rivan and Dolion?”
Marin shook her head, her brow wrinkling. “Not yet. But it sounds like Pari—”
My heart jumped into my throat as Tobias’s eyelashes fluttered.
His lips moved, but no sound came out. Marin brought a glass of water to his lips, as I gently lifted his head.
“Tobias,” I said in a rush, his name a lifeline.
His voice was barely a whisper. “Quinn?”
Of course he still knew me. He’d known me since his first breath, after all.
It also meant I had no idea how much he remembered.
He swallowed, the motion exaggerated as if even that small act took effort. “Where am I?”
“You’re safe,” I breathed. “We’re okay. You saved me.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, brushing away the wetness from my cheeks with my sleeve.
“We’re okay,” he repeated, his voice painfully unsure.
My healing magic poured through him, only to crash against the fog like surf against stone. I tried again to no avail, searching for anything I might have missed.
“Tobias…”
His breathing turned ragged. “I…I can’t see you.”
The fog in his eyes now entirely blotted out the gold. He was getting worse, not better.
Silvius hadn’t been lying.
I let out a choked cry as realization turned to heartbreak.
“There’s something I’m forgetting,” Tobias mumbled. “Something I’m…something I can’t forget…”
My blood magic reached for him this time, only for my effort to have the same effect. I could still feel his heartbeat—but his mind, his memories, the things that made him him—were caged within the fog. I wanted to scream, to sob…to plead with the universe to save him and allow us our happy ending.
“Don’t forget me,” I begged. “I can fix this if you just hold on. I-I love you.”
It was a risk saying it when I didn’t know what he remembered. But I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
His eyes slowly blinked, trying to focus on me and failing. “I love you, Quinn. I always have. N-nothing will ever change that.”
I wiped my face on the back of my sleeve, even as more tears took their place. Each heartbeat was slower, more irregular—his heart working far too hard for his weakened state, struggling to save a body that was shutting down. The heartbreak on his face mirrored my own, and I knew.
Whatever this was, Silvius had miscalculated…or perhaps this had been his plan all along. The virus wasn’t simply taking his memories.
It was killing him.
I turned to Marin so abruptly she startled.
“He’s dying,” I whispered. “Whatever Silvius did, it’s not just his mind at risk.”
“But the cure…” Her magic ran over him, the green glow fading into his body. Her face dropped as she confirmed what I already knew. “How can I help?”
A reckless plan formed in my mind as if I had always known what I had to do.
“I need you to put me under like you did for Eva and Bash.” Marin opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off. “I have to try.”
It was the clarity of desperation. Of one last chance.
“I’m going to dreamwalk to him.”