Chapter 15

We get him upstairs—he passes out on the way up. Lay him on the bed and clean his wounds with warm water and a washcloth.

He has two broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and missing fingernails, as well as a myriad of cuts and bruises.

"Ohhh, Andreas. Who did this to you?" I murmur.

He moans, shakes his head, twitching. His eyes crack open. "M…Maeve?"

"Hush. Rest. You"re safe, now."

"Tribunal. Enforcers. Wanted…you."

"I know, I know."

"Didn"t…didn"t give them anything."

"Of course not," I murmur. "Go back to sleep. You can tell me everything later."

His eyes flutter, shut, open…flutter, and shut.

Anger rifles through me, burns in my veins. They would do this to him? To Andreas? The closest thing I have to a father? My father in every way that counts?

Oh no.

No.

Fuck them.

They want war? They"ll get war.

Maeve! Breathe. Calm down, darling. Not like this. Breathe.Alistair"s voice pierces the anger.

He"s right. If I allow this anger to grow, who knows what could happen? Who knows what horrors I could unleash? Especially now, when there aren"t any fae around to kill. I would only hurt innocent people.

So, I sit in a chair beside Andreas and try to let the anger fade.

It does, to a degree. It"s still there, after several hours, but it"s a simmering stew instead of a boiling volcano.

I enter the trance state, sightless, motionless, waiting.

After a time I cannot measure, his voice stirs me. "Maeve."

I blink out of the trance. "Andreas. You"re awake."

He tries to shift upright but halts the effort with a groan. "Hurts."

"Those fuckers really did a number on you, Andreas."

He groans a half-chuckle. "Yeah, they did. Not the worst torture I"ve ever experienced, but it"s up there. Not the most fun I"ve ever had, that"s for sure."

I take his hand. "Can I…am I able to heal you? I was scared to try. Scared I'd get it wrong and make it worse."

A silence as he gathers his strength. "Good call. Yes, you can heal me. But it"s tricky, and your instincts were correct—done wrong, a healing could result in the healer taking on the wounds of the subject. Or worse."

"How do I do it?" I ask.

He shifts, moves, testing his body, groaning and catching his breath with a hiss of pain as his broken ribs protest. "Place your hands on me. Start with my ribs. You have to focus on each individual injury. You cannot heal the whole all at once."

I stand and lean over him—my robe hangs open, and his eyes flick over me and away, instantly.

"Shit, sorry." I straighten and tug the robe closed. "Let's try again, huh?"

He sniffs a laugh. "Get dressed, Maeve. I"m not going to die. I"ve been hurt far, far worse."

"I just hate to see you in pain, Andreas. I…I"m starting to be pretty fond of you."

"So much like your mother," he mumbles. "She couldn"t stand to see me in pain. Even a paper cut, she"d freak out and have to heal me instantly. Even if she was low on vitality, she"d drain herself to heal me."

I smile. "Being like Mom is the best compliment you could give me." My smile fades. "I"m not in any danger of running out of vitality, though, that"s for damn sure."

He frowns at me, his gaze flicking to my hair, to the glowing strand. "Something happened."

I sigh. "Yes. And I'll tell you after I"ve fixed you up. Let me just put on some clothes."

Somehow, despite the constant change in cars, the endless driving, the fights, and the chaos of the last few days, Caspian has somehow managed to keep our bags with us, so I have clean clothes of my own to change into.

Dressed in black leggings and a red hoodie, I return to Andreas, only to find him having worked himself to a sitting position, sweating and panting from the effort.

"Stubborn, aren"t you?" I say, grinning at him.

He shrugs in response, wincing. "Not much of one for laying around feeling sorry for myself."

"You were beaten half to death, Andreas."

A snort. "Not quite. Just a good old-fashioned interrogation beating."

I sigh and sit beside him again. Place my hands on his ribcage, on his right side where the broken ribs are.

"Close your eyes." I do, and his voice washes over me. "Try to send your awareness into your hands. Like when you look inside to see your vitality. See if you can sort of feel the injury." He pauses to let me focus.

I turn my gaze inward, but then concentrate my attention on my hands. On the breaks in the bone.

I feel them. Sharp edges that want to be together. I can almost feel the flesh and the bone yearning to knit back together.

"Now, pull a very tiny amount of vitality, and send it into my rib through your hands. Focus on the bone closing, mending." A pause. "It will hurt me. Ignore it—I can take it."

I tug at the ocean, siphoning away a few little drops of golden-white power. Will it upward, into my arm. Into my wrist. Into my hand, my fingertips. Into his body—his bones.

I will the droplets of magic into his bones. Visualize, with every ounce of concentration and determination I possess, his bones knitting back together. Atoms, molecules, bit by bit, piece by piece.

He moans in pain, and the moan becomes a full-voiced bellow.

And then it all goes wrong.

I panic.

His pain—I feel it. All of his pain, inside me. It"s too much—how can he be so casual about it?

It"s not even an impulse—it"s more of a twitch. Involuntary, there and gone.

In that millisecond twitch, I pull vitality—too much. My body, my instincts take over, as they always seem to do when magic is involved.

My awareness spreads—his pain spreads it. I feel his other broken rib, his wrist, every cut, every bruise.

I feel magic slither out of me, gathering and bunching in pools and gulleys, rivers and freshets. My head jerks back—I sense rather than see the glow emanating from me. Wind roars.

I hear Andreas yelling, but his words are less than sounds—as much the rushing of the wind as a human voice.

Magic spread. Touches his wounds, one after another, and then all at once.

Pain.

So much pain.

I shake with it, my chest hitches, my lungs squeeze empty.

Sight returns. The wind subsides.

Andreas is healed—totally.

The room is destroyed by wind—bedsheets are ripped away and tossed, pillows, papers, drawers opened, the bureau knocked over.

The agony is all-consuming. Worse than when my mortality burned away, broke apart.

Someone is screaming—me.

I"m on the floor—I feel the floorboards under my shoulders and feet. I"m arched upward, on my back, spine bent inward almost double.

Agony—agony.

Can"t breathe. Paralyzed with pain.

It multiplies, and then again, and then by orders of magnitude, until the world goes white and my consciousness cannot absorb anything more.

Heat.

Cold.

They alternate—intolerable, scorching, devouring fire; gutting, incinerating, blistering cold.

Darkness.

Blinding light.

And then…

The now-familiar nothingness.

Not the Dreamscape. Not sleep. Nothingness.