“Careful,” Elwin warned.
“I’m fine,” Fitz promised, placing a hand over his chest and taking another deep breath.
“You were sedated,” Alden reminded him.
“And you were busy getting everything ready for a murderer,” Fitz said through gritted teeth. “And you know what my favorite part is? I bet neither of you have thought at all about the fact that if the Neverseen hadn’t dumped him, Alvar would’ve been right there with them when they attacked me and Sophie.”
There was no way to know if that was true.
But no way to deny it either.
And the silence said more than enough.
“I’m tired,” Fitz told them. “And I’m not allowed to lose my temper. So . . . I think you should go.”
His parents didn’t argue.
Alden just patted him on the shoulder and Della hugged him again, whispering something in his ear as she kissed his cheek.
She left without another word, and Sophie tried to blend in with her pillows as Alden turned to leave. But his teal eyes still met hers, and she couldn’t help thinking how much they looked like his son’s—or how watery they were.
“I wish the circumstances were different,” he told her quietly, “but I’m glad you’re here together.”
He was gone before Sophie could figure out how to respond.
SEVENTEEN
I’M FINE,” FITZ PROMISED, EVEN as Mr. Snuggles went flying across the room and crashed into the door his parents had just exited through.
Sophie didn’t see how that could possibly be true.
But Fitz wasn’t acting like he was in pain.
And Elwin didn’t see any signs that his echo had stirred.
Fitz also agreed to take more of the mood elixir just to be safe.
So . . . there really wasn’t much she could do—except have Elwin tell Keefe she needed to skip the day’s skill lesson, since Keefe’s teasing and Fitz’s fragile mood would surely be a disastrous combination.
She’d also asked Fitz if he wanted to talk.
He did not—though he’d at least been willing to answer her questions about the override.
Apparently it was a way to deactivate Everglen’s gates in case they ever malfunctioned—which made Sophie very glad that he’d convinced his father to station guards nearby. It also made her wonder why guards hadn’t been assigned there in the first place.
What other vulnerabilities were they missing?
She kept the question to herself, letting Fitz nap for the remainder of the day. And even though he seemed much calmer when he woke up, she tried talking him out of monitoring her dreams again.
“You need the rest,” she told him.
But he shook his head. “I need a distraction. Please, Sophie. Let me help you with this.”
It was impossible to say no when his eyes got all puppyish.
Even Elwin caved and pushed Fitz’s cot next to hers.
There was still at least a foot of space between the two narrow beds. But after two weeks of having Fitz all the way across the room, that gap felt very tiny.
“Awwww, look at you guys, all snuggly with your little stuffed animals!” a familiar voice called from the doorway, and they both turned to find Livvy grinning at them.
The pink jewels woven through her tiny braids glinted as she made her way closer, as did the matching gems flecked across her dark skin. But all that shimmer and sparkle couldn’t hide the way her eyes clouded over when she got a better look at Sophie’s and Fitz’s bandages.
“I’d been hoping Elwin was exaggerating,” she said, placing her palm on Sophie’s broken hand. “But don’t worry, we have a brilliant new plan.”
She rattled the overstuffed satchel slung over her shoulders, and the sound of hundreds of clinking vials filled the room.
“You found everything?” Elwin asked as he joined them.
Livvy nodded. “Took me three stops to find all the right feces.”
“They better not be for our new medicines,” Fitz warned, and Sophie definitely echoed that sentiment.
“Don’t worry—they only go in the topical stuff,” Livvy promised, handing her satchel to Elwin. “Though I did also bring congealed selkie skin. And hollowthistles—remember those, Fitz?”
The tinge of green to Fitz’s skin made it clear that he absolutely remembered them—and the week of misery he’d endured, thanks to hollowthistle tea.
“Relax,” Elwin told them. “It won’t be as bad as you’re thinking.”
Translation: It definitely would be bad.
“The lab’s this way,” Elwin said, leading Livvy toward the alchemy section of the Healing Center. “We should probably get started. Some of these elixirs are going to take a few hours to brew.”
“Isn’t it convenient,” Livvy asked Sophie and Fitz, “how Elwin just happened to have an all-night project the same time you’re doing your little dream experiment?”
“It’s called multitasking,” Elwin argued.
“And spying,” Livvy added.
“Making sure I’m up if they need anything,” Elwin corrected.
“So wait—I’m going to be the only one sleeping?” Sophie clarified. “Great, because that doesn’t make me feel weird at all.”
“You shouldn’t,” Elwin told her.
“Well, you should a little,” Livvy argued, “since I’m betting the Pretty Boy’s going to spend most of the night staring at you as he listens to your dreams.”
“What else am I supposed to stare at?” Fitz wondered.
Elwin laughed and winked at Sophie. “You know where to find us.”
They left them alone then, and the room was suddenly very, very quiet.
“You don’t want to do this anymore, do you?” Fitz asked as Sophie tugged out an itchy eyelash.
Not even a little bit.
“I’ll stare at the wall,” he offered. “Or the floor.”
Before Sophie could decide, an exuberant voice blared inside her head—SOPHIE! FRIEND! HELP!—and she learned that there was simply no turning down the assistance of an overprotective mama alicorn.
“It won’t be weird,” Fitz promised as Sophie settled back against her pillows. “Trust me.”
Oh, it would definitely be weird.
But she did trust him.
And Silveny was already flooding her mind with vivid scenes of the two of them soaring through a sunset sky. So she closed her eyes and focused on the rush tingling under her skin as Silveny imagined them flipping and diving and somersaulting through a sea of soft pink clouds.
Higher and higher they went, until the ground was nothing more than a memory. And still, they kept climbing.
Away from reality.
Away from monsters.
Away from anything that would ever try to catch them.
The next thing she knew, it was morning and she’d slept twelve straight hours.
Fitz grinned. “Another victory for Team Fitzphie!”
• • •
The new congealed selkie skin medicine tasted like eating a stale gummy bear that had spent a few days chilling in a dirty litter box—but choking it down turned out to be the least disgusting part of Sophie and Fitz’s morning.
The real prize for Ickiest Way to Start the Day went to the moment Elwin announced that he needed to change out their bandages to give their treatment a fresh start. Even Livvy didn’t stick around when Elwin sliced into the cocoons and unleashed a musky plume—and she kept a running top ten list of the grossest things she’d done.
There were no words to describe the odor, or the grayish-green ooze that splashed everywhere, which was some sort of by-product of the marrow regenerator. But Fitz’s face turned a color similar to the shade of his eyes, and Sophie had been very glad she’d only had a couple bites of her breakfast.
And that was before she got a glimpse of her swollen hand.
“Try not to move your fingers,” Elwin warned.
She couldn’t have even if she’d
tried. Her hand felt stiff and numb, as if she’d left it out in the cold too long. And her fingers were currently the size of raw sausages—and just as pale and squishy and gross.
“I know it’s hard to believe me when I say this,” Elwin told her, flashing a glowing orange orb around her hand, “but this is actually much better than Livvy and I were expecting. The echo wasn’t letting me get a clear picture of your progress, and it looks like the bones have set far more than I thought—enough that I can finally start treating some of the nerve and tissue damage too. So the next time you see this hand, it’ll look almost normal.”
Sophie tried not to focus on the “almost” in that sentence.
Or the potent smell of the blackish, reddish, bluish goop he smeared across her palm.
“I’m guessing I don’t want to know what that stuff is,” she said as Elwin started wrapping her fingers mummy-style in strips of thin white bandage.
“Yeah, you guys aren’t going to want to know about pretty much anything I do to you for the next few days,” Elwin admitted. “But I promise, it will be worth it. I’m betting we’ll have you home by the end of the week.”
Fitz didn’t look very excited about that prospect, but given the tension between him and his parents, Sophie couldn’t blame him.
“Hold your hand a little higher,” Elwin instructed, draping something that looked like golden chain mail over Sophie’s fresh cocoon of bandages and binding it every few inches with thin black bands. “This is for compression, so it’s supposed to feel tight. But let me know if it feels too tight, okay?”
It felt like when someone had too firm of a handshake: not painful—just annoying.
“I still need you to try not to move,” he added as he set her arm back on its nest of pillows—and Sophie doubted she could have, even if she’d wanted to. The chain mail was heavy. “But hopefully that’ll be changing soon.”
Fitz’s leg got the same treatment. So did his ribs—and he did not look happy when Elwin strapped him into some sort of chain-mail vest.
He looked even grumpier when Elwin set a tray of medicine in his lap.
It had to have at least thirty elixirs on it.
Sophie was all set to tease him, until Elwin brought over her tray, and it probably had forty. Her mouth watered just looking at it all—and not in the “I’m hungry” kind of way.
In the “vomiting is probably in my immediate future” way.
“This is actually only half of it,” Elwin warned. “But I don’t want to overwhelm your stomachs. So you’ll take the rest tonight.”
“Can’t wait,” Sophie mumbled—but it sounded like “hant ate” because she was trying to use her teeth to open the first dose.
“Here,” Fitz said, leaning over and taking the vial before she spilled it all over herself.
At some point during the night, their cots had gotten scooched even closer together. Only a few inches separated them now.
She’d expected him to hand her the opened vial, but he scooted even closer and pressed the glass against her lips—something Elwin had done for her dozens and dozens of times.
But it was a very different experience with Fitz.
Especially when his finger accidentally grazed the edge of her lips. Not that he seemed to notice.
He didn’t blush the tiniest bit—which was extra annoying, since she was certain her cheeks were neon red.
“You’re helping me so you don’t have to take your own medicine, huh?” Sophie teased, ordering her head and heart to get their act together.
This was one friend helping another—nothing more.
Fitz confirmed it when he winked and added, “Also letting you test them all, so I know which ones are the grossest. Want this one next?” He pointed to a thick brown elixir. “I’m guessing it’s all kinds of wrong.”
“Actually, that’s one of the good ones,” Elwin corrected. “It’s the shimmery pink one you should be afraid of. In fact, you’re probably going to need a chaser for that.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled a handful of the silver-wrapped squishy candies he’d given Sophie before, setting them on the tray next to the vial in question.
The elixir looked like melting sugar swirled with strawberry syrup—but when Fitz twisted off the lid, it smelled like a bathroom after someone had eaten a whole lot of asparagus.
“Drink it fast,” Elwin recommended. “And hold your breath.”
Sophie nodded, using her free hand to plug her nose as Fitz counted to three and tipped the medicine into her mouth—but her taste buds still immediately tried to convince her that she should spit the rotten sludge back out as fast as she possibly could.
Her eyes watered and her stomach contracted, even after Fitz helped her take a bite of the black squishy candy.
“You okay?” he asked, offering her the other half.
“No.”
She took the bite anyway, trying to focus on the snickerdoodle flavor.
It sort of helped.
“That was seriously the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” she told Elwin.
“I know. And believe it or not, it’s nectar from these tiny pink flowers called sugarbelles. But I promise, it’s worth the bad taste. That’s one of the most important medicines that Livvy and I came up with.”
“Then I’m glad I kept it down.”
“So am I,” Fitz teased. “For a second I thought it was going to be like the day we found out you’re allergic to limbium.”
Sophie groaned. “Great, I’m so glad you still remember that.”
“It’s kinda hard to forget,” he admitted. “But it was . . .”
“Super gross?” she guessed when he couldn’t seem to figure out where he was going with that sentence.
“Well. Yeah. But”—he reached up to wipe a crumb off her lips, and she forgot how to breathe for a second—“I’m still glad I was there. If I hadn’t been . . .”
He didn’t finish. But he didn’t need to.
And she was glad he’d been there too.
She just wished she could’ve lived and not thrown up all over him.
“Ready for more?” he asked, right around the time her lungs decided to remind her that air was a pretty important thing.
“Yeah,” she said, mentally smacking herself to try to get it together.
Seriously, what was it about cute boys that made it so hard to function?
“Probably smart to get the teal one over with next,” Elwin suggested.
Fitz held up the vial in question, squinting at the ocean-colored liquid as it sloshed around the tiny bottle. “Hmm. Hopefully this doesn’t ruin your favorite color for you.”
“It won’t.” She ordered herself not to meet his eyes. The last thing she needed was him guessing why the color was her favorite.
But she couldn’t help a quick glance, and . . .
Breathing became impossible again—which turned out to be a good thing when he poured the medicine into her mouth and the taste of old broccoli and boiled cabbage hit her hard.
“Here,” he said, placing another candy on her tongue. “Better?”
“Kinda.”
The second bite did the trick—until Keefe’s voice called from the doorway, “Dude, are you guys feeding each other?”
“No—we were just . . .” Sophie stopped when she realized there was no good way to explain the last few minutes.
Keefe clutched his stomach and pretended to hurl all over his Level Six uniform. “Wow. You guys have really out-Fitzphie’d yourselves—and don’t even get me started on how close your cots are now. How’d you get Elwin to agree to that?”
“Easy,” Fitz said. “I stayed up all night, monitoring Sophie’s dreams.”
“Yeah . . . that doesn’t sound creepy at all,” Keefe told him. He opened his mouth to say something else, then shut it. “Never mind. Elwin said I’m not supposed to tease you.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” Ro said, shoving her way into the Healing Center. Her
eyes scanned Fitz up and down. “So . . . you’re awake.”
Fitz nodded. “I am.”
“And you’re okay now?” Keefe asked.
“Mostly,” Fitz admitted.
“Good. Because you were out for a pretty long time, and some people were starting to worry—I mean, not me. I figured you were just playing it up for sympathy, but . . .” He cleared his throat. “Ugh, this is really hard if I can’t make fun of you.”
Fitz laughed. “That almost makes it worth it.”
“Oh, I’ll find a way,” Keefe promised.
“I’m sure you will,” Fitz told him, taking the dark red elixir that Sophie had been struggling to open and unscrewing the lid.
“Looks like things are about to get interesting here in sparkle town,” Ro said as Fitz held the vial to Sophie’s lips.
“Why’s that?” Fitz wondered, blocking Sophie from snatching the vial away.
“Because now you can help me write The Ballad of Bo and Ro!” Keefe jumped in. “Did Foster tell you how much they loooooooooooooooooove each other? Step aside, Sandor and Grizel—Bo and Ro are vying for cutest bodyguard couple. And their names rhyme!”
“Keep it up,” Ro said, sharpening one of her claws. “I’m going to make you pay for every single joke.”
Keefe smirked. “You can try, but . . .”
His words trailed off as Fitz poured the elixir into Sophie’s mouth, and she shook her head, wondering if the sour flavor could make the glands near her ears explode.
“Here,” Keefe said, pulling a fresh box of Prattles from his cape pocket. “Wash it down with this.”
“We’re good,” Fitz told him, giving Sophie another piece of the snickerdoodle candy.
“Wow,” Ro said, elbowing Keefe. “Nothing you want to say about that, Hunkyhair?”
“Nope!” But his smile faded when he noticed Sophie’s chain-mail-covered hand.
“Don’t worry, Krakie’s safe with me,” Sophie promised. “So are all his friends.” She scooped up the tiny metal animals she’d piled in her lap. “Be glad you weren’t around when Elwin cut through the fabric.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to have nightmares about the ooze,” Fitz added.
Keefe reeled toward Elwin. “You did something oozy without me?”
“And me?” Ro added.
Flashback Page 22