by Dodge, Lola
I kept staring at Wynn. “He’s going to be okay. Right?”
Gabi patted my arm, still dosing me with her magic. “My parents are the best. Dad already called for Jane.”
Jane was a nurse and the Syndicate’s top healer. It would be better if she was already here, but Gabi’s parents moved with calm deliberation.
Her dad snapped on rubber gloves as he bent over Wynn. His wide shoulders blocked me from seeing the worst of the wounds.
“Come on.” Gabi tugged me. “We’re getting you out of here.”
With the chill of her magic, my knees stopped shaking enough to support my weight, but when she pulled me, my feet didn’t budge. Gabi’s mom and dad moved fast, but efficiently, pulling tools and gauze from the med bag. Vanessa’s fingers glowed with healing light.
And yet…
Wynn was still limp.
Still cold.
I shouldn’t know that from this far away, but I did. As sure as I knew he was dying.
Wisps of spectral smoke twisted from my fingers. The urge to pull him across into death calmed the rest of my shakes for a split-second.
Pull him across?
How about keep him from crossing?
I waved my arms, trying to knock myself free of the horrible compulsion. There had to be a way to use this stupid magic to save Wynn.
I was about to say as much to Gabi when Blair sprinted into the barn, her Servants trailing behind her.
“Stop!” Blair grabbed my wrist. The death magic evaporated from my hands. “You were about to do something stupid.”
“If I can save—”
“We’ll save him.” Blair squeezed my wrist. “But let me drive, okay?”
“Okay?” I wasn’t sure what she meant yet, but she tugged me to Wynn and we both knelt next to his legs. His legs were safer to look at. Only spattered with blood. No cuts of their own.
“Just feel what I’m doing. Don’t use the magic yourself.”
Magic glowed at Blair’s fingertips. She set a hand on Wynn’s calf. Her energy was greenish-black, but white sparkles rose out of Wynn.
Answering her?
I tried to look with the senses other than my eyes. Focusing as much as I could while I was shaking.
My skin had chilled a few degrees, and more chill seeped from Blair. Energy swirled inside Wynn, too.
Pearly, sparkling white. The color of an abalone shell.
The sparkles crystalized into a mirror image of Wynn that floated over his body. His spirit or soul or essence. I didn’t know the right words, but the words weren’t important because everything that made Wynn Wynn hovered right there in the middle of the barn.
Magic spilled from my fingertips, aching to do something—I just wasn’t sure exactly what. I leaned over Wynn’s legs, needing to get closer to that sparkling version of him. Blair yanked me back. Her magic sliced away my urge to cast.
“We’re not pushing or pulling him,” Blair said. “Feel that? I’m holding him in stasis. When his body’s stable, I’ll pop his spirit back inside.”
“But…” The shape of him looked so forlorn. He shouldn’t have to hover. He should go…somewhere.
In or out.
The door should be open or closed.
Not jammed halfway.
He should be at peace.
“I know we’re going against nature.” Blair eased her grip. “You can’t help wanting to send him along, right? That’s the death magic talking. Or do you want him to die?”
“No.” Of course I didn’t want Wynn to die.
“Then help me hold him here.”
Gabi’s parents kept working while we knelt on the barn floor. I didn’t see what they were doing anymore. All I could focus on was the connection to Blair and the way her power swirled hot and cold in time with the pulsing of Wynn’s heartbeat. Even his soul pulsed at the same rhythm, shimmering, sparkling, and hovering exactly where she kept him. I couldn’t tell if I was helping, but at least I wasn’t working against her.
By the time Jane’s footsteps hit the floorboards, my brain felt three sizes too big for my skull. The swelling ached in my temples and the room blurred.
“He’s stable enough. I’m going to ease him back in.” Blair let go of Wynn and me at the same time. The sparkles faded, settling back inside his body. Gauze already covered his gashes.
A breath spilled from deep in my belly. Thank Goodness.
Wynn was going to be all right.
Eventually.
Blair and Gabi helped me hobble back to the house and set me down in the kitchen while her Servants carried Wynn upstairs on a stretcher.
“Give her mushrooms for that headache,” Blair said.
“Mushrooms?” Gabi peered into her fridge. “Any other options?”
“Please.” I hated mushrooms. In all forms.
“Chocolate?”
“That we can do.” Gabi disappeared into the walk-in pantry and popped back out holding a bag of chocolate truffles.
Much better than mushrooms.
“Take some aspirin and have a cold bath before bed,” Blair said, “and stick your head under the water. A sensory deprivation tank would be even better.”
Gabi rolled her eyes. “Sure, Blair. We keep our sensory deprivation tanks out by the mushroom fields.”
“I’ll stick with the cold bath.” As miserable as it sounded, I’d follow whatever wacky remedies Blair prescribed. My head felt like a grape in a vise.
In between numbly downing chocolate truffles, I called Agatha to give her an update, but Lonnie picked up, telling me they’d already heard the news. “Better stay there for the night, dear. Sounds like you both had a day.”
That was the truth.
I stuffed myself with chocolate until my stomach hurt and took a freezing bath of misery. My brain finally stopped swelling, but I’d eaten so much sugar, I felt wired instead of exhausted.
Blair ducked out to head back to her service, and Jane left after Wynn was settled in the upstairs guest room, leaving care instructions to Gabi’s parents. “Call me if he starts bleeding again. We’ll get him into a private room at the hospital.”
It was long dark by the time Gabi made me a nest of sleeping bags in her room. I just couldn’t sleep while my bodyguard was suffering. Grabbing a blanket, I headed to the guest room.
Passed out, Wynn didn’t flinch when I dragged a chair in from the hallway. Someone had hooked him up to an IV and taken off his shirt. He lay on his stomach, bare arms above his head and pillow, his whole back wrapped in gauze.
Thankfully, his bleeding had stopped.
I wrapped the blanket tight around my shoulders and settled in for a long night.
“Idiot,” I muttered.
As soon as he woke up, I had a million questions for him. Like what kind of grudge could he possibly have with a battle crow? Because that thing definitely had a grudge against him.
“Who’s the idiot?” His voice was thick but he cracked open a bleary eye that instantly zapped me with a full-force glare.
I laugh-choked. “You are.”
“You put yourself in danger.” He braced his arms and started to push up. “On purpose.”
Horrified, I grabbed his upper arm. “You’re hurt.”
He grunted and fell back onto his stomach. “Don’t ever do that.”
“What about you? You can try a stab a giant bird and I just have to watch?”
“Exactly.”
“No.” I pulled away from him and tucked my arms back under the blanket before I gave in to the urge to pinch him.
“Don’t play with your life.”
“Why?” I didn’t like risking myself. I wasn’t a fighter and never would be, but we kept coming back to this and Wynn never answered my questions.
“I protect, you get protected.”
“You’ve told me that before. But why? Why can’t we work together?”
He let out a heavy sigh but winced halfway.
“Do you need more pain meds?” I
hopped up from the chair. “I’ll get Vanessa.”
“No.” He bit out the word. “No more drugs.”
“Okay.” I eased back into the chair. “Do you need anything else?”
“I need you to stop risking your life. If you die, I die.”
“What?” The words echoed between my ears. I had to have heard him wrong. “What do you mean?”
Was that in the terms of his contract?
“If you die, what other witch would hire me as a bodyguard?”
“Wait. You’re more worried about your job than my life?” I recoiled, clutching the blanket so tight it pushed against the lingering neck bruises where the crazy man had tried to choke me to death.
“It’s not like that.” He pressed a palm to his forehead and rubbed between his eyes. For a guy who slept half the time, he looked twice as exhausted as usual. “Zedock only cares about money. If I can’t work off my debt, I’m worth more to him as an organ sack.”
“Zed?” I’d only met the creepy Shield master once and that was plenty. “Why are you in debt to Zed?” I knew I was asking stupid questions, but the word organs kept rattling around in my head like dice made of bones.
“For crossing through the vortex. My—” His voice cut off in a cough.
“Here.” I grabbed the cup of water from his nightstand and pushed the straw to his lips.
He sipped hard like he was angry he had to take water from my hands. Or anything I offered. It wasn’t the first time he’d given me this look.
The roots of guilt dug deeper into my ribs. At the same time, heat prickled in my cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I would’ve made so many decisions differently if I’d known I was putting both our lives were at risk.
“You’re a witch.” He spat out the straw. “I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“Now you do.” He stretched his arms above his head, jangling the IV tube.
I wanted to pinch that tube and cut off the flow of medicine that was obviously making his brain malfunction. “If you want to live so much, why’d you stand down that crow?”
“Principle.”
“It seemed like the crow recognized you.”
“Maybe.”
Aaaand we were back to one-word answers.
Great.
I leaned my chair back, balancing it on two legs and trying to put some distance between us. “I was going to spend the night here. Making sure you’re okay.”
Wynn closed his eyes.
Ignoring me.
Fine.
I shifted my blanket, ready to toss it on the floor and storm away. Leave him to spend the night alone. But the blanket corner was tucked underneath one of the chair legs.
I tugged. It tipped my balance.
I fell backward and a sickly pit yawned in my stomach. I reached, grabbing for anything that would keep my head from slamming into the wall.
Stop my head from busting—
Hands grabbed my wrists.
Wynn’s face contorted with pain, lips pressed into a flat line, and his hazel eyes thundering like stormy skies. The stomach pit opened up again, but not because I was falling. He hoisted me until all four chair legs hit the floor then collapsed back onto the bed.
My heart pumped at hummingbird speed. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“It’s my job.” His voice was faint. I understood why when a muscle spasm wracked him, making his body writhe against the bed.
I sat helplessly until his spasms faded to aftershocks.
I wasn’t the kind of person who grilled someone for answers. I didn’t even speak that much if I could help it.
But Wynn.
I couldn’t take watching him in pain anymore. Pain I kept causing. “I don’t have to know your life story, but will you at least tell me what I need to know to keep you from getting hurt?”
“What do you want to know?” His voice was weak from pain or drugs or just exhaustion.
“Your Shield contract. What are the terms?”
Wynn let out a wry puff of air. “Ask my mother.”
“It’s your contract. Why would she—” My breath caught. “Did she…?”
“Indenture me? Yeah.”
I swallowed, a little dizzy. “When do you get to stop being a Shield?”
“When I’ve earned enough to pay back the debt.”
The debt was what I didn’t understand. “Why do you owe Zedock?”
“For pulling my family through the vortex. That magic costs.”
“But why did you risk coming through? What happened?” And what family? And how much did it cost?
I could only fit so many questions in a breath.
“My father died.” His matter-of-fact voice made a shudder rattle my spine. “He was a warlord, fighting to unite the four kingdoms. I was too young to take up his sword. He died, and his enemies wanted his family dead, too. My mother cut a deal. My life and my brother’s life sold to Zed’s agents for safe passage to another world. She ran free, we were contracted as Shields.”
“That’s…” Too, too much to process. I focused in on the one piece I could handle. “Where’s your brother now?”
“Dead.”
Holy hell was this messed up. “And your mother…”
“Haven’t seen her since I was seven.”
“Wynn… That’s….” Words failed.
“I don’t want your pity.” His gaze hardened. “I want you to stop screwing around with your life.”
Balancing on my chair was hardly risking my life but arguing seemed stupid right now. “I’ll be more careful.” Robot-jerky, I stood from the chair and stutter-stepped my way to the hallway. “I’ll send Vanessa to check on you.”
Outside, I leaned against the wall and tried to take deep breaths. I had no idea what to do with this information on Wynn.
Now that I knew the truth, I had to do something about it.
Eight
I spent the night in Gabi’s room in that weird twilight state where I was awake enough to realize I wasn’t sleeping but too drained to do anything but stare at the ceiling.
How could I help Wynn?
I counted so many sheep, I’d probably be reborn as a shepherd, but I couldn’t scrape any new answers from the herd.
A few hours past dawn, Gabi nudged my blanket. “Mom’s cooking brioche French toast. You want to head down? I’ll be there in a sec.”
After yawning out the worst of my groggies, I made my way to the kitchen. Light streamed through the curtains, and Vanessa hummed to herself while she flipped a piece of French toast on the gas stove. The whole room smelled like cinnamon and caramelized sugar.
“Grab a chair,” Vanessa called. “Slices on the way.”
Already drooling, I took a seat at the table in the breakfast nook. Gabi’s dad lowered his newspaper at the sound of my chair scraping the tiled floor.
“So this is the Anise I’ve heard so much about. We haven’t officially met. I’m Gabi’s father, Thurston.”
His big, warm smile reminded me so much of Gabi, I had to smile back. “Nice to meet you.”
“You two really riled up that old girl last night.” He peered over the rims of his glasses.
“The battle crow?”
“What’d he do to tick her off like that?”
“I don’t know.” I fiddled with the cloth napkin at my place setting. How much could I tell Gabi’s parents? Her mom and my mom had been friends for decades so it wasn’t an issue of trust. I just wasn’t sure how much of Wynn’s story was mine to tell. “I think it was something to do with his homeworld.”
“Ah.” Thurston folded his paper and set it on the empty bench seat beside him. “I was wondering about his contract.”
“Thurston used to be a Shield,” Vanessa spoke over her shoulder, still flipping French toast.
“You were?” My voice lifted halfway to the ceiling. Thurston looked more like an accountant than a warrior, with a tall, thin build and not a hint of magic in his
energy.
“A long time ago. Bought out at twenty, went to vet school, married Vanessa.” He chuckled. “Maybe went to vet school because of Vanessa.”
She whipped her dish towel at her husband.
He grinned at her, but the expression faded to concern as his gaze swept back to me. “How long has he been indentured?”
I wasn’t exactly sure of Wynn’s age, but I’d always assumed he was a little older than me. If he’d last seen his mother at seven? “Maybe ten to fifteen years?”
Thurston trilled a whistle. “Zedock’s got hooks in him.”
“You know Zed?”
“He’s been Shield master as long as there’ve been Shields.”
“That can’t be.” According to that book I hadn’t finished yet, that would mean Zed had been in Taos since the 1800s.
“As far as we can tell, he’s immortal.” Vanessa slipped a piece of French toast onto my plate. “Not a witch, sort of a sorcerer, always a mystery. And a terrible man. But a necessary evil.”
I’d figured the terrible part out already. “So, Wynn might be indentured his whole life?” The smell of breakfast food was suddenly gagging.
“If his debt’s big enough.” Thurston frowned. “Depends what he’s paying for.”
My voice sounded far away. “What about bringing three people through the vortex?”
“Three?” Vanessa exchanged a look with her husband.
He shook his head. “He’s the only one paying down that debt?”
“I think so.”
“Well.” He scrubbed a hand through his tight curls. “Took me about five years to pay back my slice, but I came on a group rate.”
“We’re from the same world,” Vanessa explained. “A few hundred of us fled the civil war. Thurston and I were only children back then. We crossed over with the same contingent.”
“How much did you pay?” I asked, fascinated in spite of how icky this all sounded.
“I’ve never been sure. My family arranged the passage, so I wasn’t indentured.”
“Indenture’s only for the poor and desperate,” Thurston said.
If Wynn’s father was a deposed warlord, he might not have been poor, but he’d definitely been desperate. “Would the battle crow be agitated meeting a warlord?”
“Absolutely,” Vanessa said. “Wynn was a…?”