Chapter 46

No one looked up when I burst into the kitchen, a testament to how wholly they were focused on their task of saving the female laid out on the table, Torin's milk-white face framing ice-blue lips.

Simon grasped her hand, his eyes the color of mud, his expression blank as he stared down at her. Weary and defeated and helpless like the rest of us, but unlike us…his heart was being ripped apart.

Maybe mine was being ripped out a little, too.

I crossed to him, clasping his hand in mine, and stared down at Torin.

After seeing her stand beside the Fae King, then the Oracle, I'd never once thought of Torin as vulnerable, but gods, she was so fragile. We couldn't lose her. Not now.

And not just because we needed her to help us kill the king.

Vesper rocked back from the table, frustration deepening the lines on her face as the rainbow web of magic faded.

"I might be able to help," I said softly.

An old witch looked me up and down, not unkindly but with the keen eyes of experience. "You're no healer, and even if you were, she is beyond our help now. Best to let her go to the Great Beyond and rest."

"No, I don't have healing magic. But I have something close." I held the keystone out to Vesper and she reeled back, shock written across her face, withered hands gripping the back of a chair. "I brought Zorander back from the dead with this stone. If I could access its magic, as unskilled as I am, certainly you can work a miracle to save Torin."

Vesper held out her hand and I dropped the stone into her palm, power rippling through the room the second it landed. As if two mighty magics had merged into one.

"Save Torin, Vesper. She risked everything to save her friends." I wrapped her fingers around the stone. "It seems most unfair if she doesn't get to enjoy some time with them."

Two witches tugged Simon away, then the High Priestess carefully balanced the stone in the center of Torin's unmoving chest, her delicate skin still flecked with tiny wounds seeping droplets of shimmering venom.

There was a scuffling sound, then Tavion and Tristan were behind me, Tristan's face a mask of regret. "I tried…" he murmured softly. "We tried to get her out of there. But there were too many…"

"You got her home, Tristan. Everyone made it back, and that's enough." I squeezed his arm, never taking my eyes off the four witches chanting softly, their hands weaving complicated signals in the air, patterns of light forming one of those beautiful webs of tangled color over her like they had with Tavion.

I winced. I'd smeared my blood all over Zor then crudely slammed my magic straight into him.

It was probably a miracle I hadn't done something terrible that day.

Never had I seen magic wielded with this much skill before. Delicate and deliberate, the web grew brighter, a network of rich, rainbow light that seemed to be spun from the sun itself, so incandescent it touched my very depths.

The room shuddered, there was a blinding flash, then the web settled over Torin's body like flowing lava, rippling with heat and light and power, spreading over her until the glittering magic covered her completely.

The rasp of Torin's first inhale sent Simon stumbling forward, yanked back by the four witches hissing out a warning.

"Touch her right now and you both die."

Her skin began to glow. Her breathing turned from labored to even and steady. Her eyes flickered then fluttered closed, as if she couldn't find the strength to keep them open, but her face bloomed with color.

Outside the room—outside Stormfall—a deep, keening roar shook the stone walls around us, the witches freezing in place, cowering down. "I'll intercept him," Simon said, wrapping someone's cloak tighter around himself. "Not that it will do any good until he sees her for himself."

He didn't even make it to the door before a very naked Zephryn ricocheted off the doorjamb and careened into the room, his feet sliding in all directions, eyes wild, splattering blood and venom through the air with every frantic movement.

"Watch him," someone shouted. "Don't get any of that venom on you."

"Fuck." I wiped a tiny shivering green drop off on my pants then studied the red, puffy blisters bursting up on my arm. "Fuck, that hurts. Don't let him touch anyone else."

"I got this." Tavion moved to intercept, but Simon was already there, eyes burning.

"Zephryn." Simon planted himself in front of his friend. "Tor's going to be fine. She's breathing, but you're still covered in venom, and if you touch any of us, you'll hurt us. If you touch Tor right now, you will hurt her, do you understand?"

Simon braced his hand on Zephryn's shuddering chest. "Torin will be okay, Zeph. She's going to heal and be fine, but right now, you have to sit down and let them clean you up. You took the brunt of the attack from the looks of things."

The big male blinked. "She'll be fine? Truly? Because I swore I felt…" He rubbed his chest compulsively as he scanned the seer, the fading web of magic covering her, her chest rising and falling evenly, her face a calm mask.

"I thought she was gone." Zephryn swayed like a tree buffeted by the wind. "On the way here, I thought I felt Tor leave me behind."

Simon clapped his hand on the dragon shifter's shoulder, wincing when his palm landed in a splatter of venom. "She is going to live. We are all going to live. Now sit down and let them treat you properly, you stubborn arse." Simon's eyes caught fire. "We got the pendant. We have Cosimo, Zeph. We got him back."

Relief rippled across the male's face before he sank to the floor, shoulders quaking, face cradled in his hands as Vesper and the others began weaving their web of magic around him.

Raz was fast asleep by the time Tavion got Tristan upstairs. Torin was carried off to bed by Simon, Zephryn recovering in an induced healing sleep the witches swore he'd wake from fully restored.

I peeled off my clothes and climbed into bed between a half-awake Zorander and Tavion.

"Did it work?" Zor asked quietly. "Did they get the pendant?"

"We have the pendant, everyone is okay, but we're taking a full day to sleep and recover." I figured it would do no good to tell Zor anything about last night given I didn't even fully understand what had happened.

Tristan told me bits and pieces, but gods, none of it made much sense.

"Long story short, we've lost another day thanks to the Oracle," I groused. "But I suppose that means we all get to spend the day in bed."

"Sounds like a plan," Zor mumbled before he passed out.