I did my best to pick up the pace.
Ow.
“Someone,” I panted to Davy who walked next to me, “might be breaking into my apartment. With magic. Nola might be in there. My friend. She doesn’t cast. Do you know how to set Proxy on someone?” I asked.
“In theory. I’ve never done it before,” he said.
“Just like setting a Disbursement on yourself. Project it onto the other person. Onto me.”
He laughed. “Right. You’re barely standing.”
“Fuck you. I’m so very more than standing. I’m climbing. And talking. And thinking.”
We’d made it to the third floor now. I didn’t hear any screaming, growling, or anything else, really. Everything seemed normal.
Well, except for the hallway being all blurry at the edges and the sparks of silver fog that lit up at the corner of my vision whenever I turned my head too quickly.
I turned to look at Davy and had to spread my feet so I wouldn’t fall over. Wow. The price of casting all that magic, probably the magic I cast and the magic my father cast, was really kicking in.
“Listen,” I said in the most reasonable voice I could muster. “I can’t cast right now. You can. Proxy me so you can stay clearheaded and help Nola.”
“Like I can’t pay to play?” He actually sounded offended.
As well he should be, I guess. I’d basically just told him he wasn’t strong enough to cast magic. Wasn’t strong enough to endure the pain. But that wasn’t even close to what I was worried about.
“Course you can,” I said. “I know that. But you might need a lot of magic in a hurry. I’m wiped. One of us needs to stay clearheaded. ’S gonna be you, Silvers.”
I put out my right hand and got back to that walking thing, dragging my fingertips along the wall. I wasn’t getting anywhere fast, but I was getting somewhere slow.
“Wait,” Davy said beside me. “What kind of magic?”
We had reached my apartment door. “Any good at Hold?”
“I can do it.”
“Great. Get ready to hold back a tank.”
I tried the door. Locked. I was pretty sure I was happy about that.
Davy muttered something, a rhyme, a poem, that I couldn’t quite catch the words of, his mantra to clear his mind for casting.
While he did that, I pulled my keys out of my pocket and turned the lock. I opened the door as quietly as I could.
The apartment was dark except for the wan light of streetlights seeping down through the windows in the living room. Everything seemed to be exactly as I had left it. I walked in, glanced over the half wall to the kitchen. Nothing in there moved, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t crouched down in the dark.
Davy glided behind me, damn quiet for someone who showed no sign of shutting up just a minute ago. He had that kind of wolflike grace, his young face set in a calm but fierce determination, his body language aware but not tense.
I pointed at the kitchen and Davy walked into it, leaving the lights out.
I snuck into the living room as well as I could. I was beginning to feel more than a little dizzy. I checked the couch, the corners, and down the hall. Nothing. No one out of the ordinary. No Nola on the couch. I wondered if she’d gone into the bedroom.
I switched the light on in the bathroom. Nothing but bathroom. Then I knocked gently on the bedroom door, which would tell whoever was in there that I was out here, but barging in on Nola, spells a-blazin’, didn’t make any sense either. And if something was in there, I didn’t think I had the element of surprise on my side anyway.
Davy came up behind me, a yellow-haired shadow, and put one hand on my shoulder.
Pain rushed through me, hot enough I could hear my blood pounding in my ears.
Holy shit, that hurt. I pressed my lips together and tried not to make a sound. That, apparently, was the shoulder the creature had bitten. Good of Davy to bring that particular pain back to my attention.
But he wasn’t just poking at my wounds. He moved closer so I would have to step out of the way and let him go first.
I glared at him, and he glared right back and held up his right hand. The tips of his thumb and ring finger were touching, the end point of the Hold glyph he’d probably traced. Since I wasn’t pulling magic into my sense of sight, I didn’t actually see the glyph he held.
Right. I’d told him he’d have to take point on this. Best to get out of the kid’s way and try not to faint when the Proxy hit me.
Davy opened the door.
“Nola?” I said quietly.
Someone behind the door put something heavy down. It sounded like the bat I kept under my bed.
“Allie?” Nola pulled the door the rest of the way open and turned on the light while standing in the doorway.
Wearing a rumpled cow T-shirt and a pair of sweats, it was obvious she had just crawled out of bed. Her hair was unbraided, and falling in messy waves around her face.
Her confusion turned into anger at seeing Davy in front of her.
“Sorry,” I said from behind Davy. I was pretty sure I was still behind him anyway. Everything was getting jumpy, the whole room skittering side to side with each pound of my pulse. Just to make sure my head wasn’t going to fall off my shoulders, I leaned it against the wall. The Sheetrock felt cool beneath my cheek. I closed my eyes, and had to fight to open them again.
Did it too. Go, me.
“Thought there might be something. . one. . breaking in.” It came out almost all slur, and I hoped they’d gotten the gist of it because I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it again.
“Nola Robbins,” I heard her say in the brisk matter-of-fact way that made her sound like my mom instead of like my friend who was the same age as me.
“Davy Silvers,” he said. “She got jumped on the street.”
There was some moving around going on, the room switching from the slide step to a bouncy little cha-cha.
“I got you,” Nola said. “Take another step for me, honey. Good.”
That was when I realized that she was talking to me. And it wasn’t the house jumping around, it was me walking, or more likely, being dragged somewhere.
I opened my eyes. When had I closed them?
“Can you get her boots?” Nola asked.
“Yup.” That was Davy.
“Wait,” I said, except it came out all air and nothing else.
“We got you, honey. Now you’re going to lie down.”
I swear the woman shoved me. Nice job, Nola. That push made the whole damn room circle the drain, and I was caught in the vortex.
“The thing,” I tried to say. The beast. The murderer. The gargoyle. The bite on my shoulder. The blood on my chest. The dad in my brain. The disk in the throat. The Veiled. The leeches. The magic not being magic. But none of it came out.
In the distance, Nola and Davy discussed hot water, stitches, and butterflies, all of which seemed strange.
I tried to listen, but their voices faded into the ocean thrum of my heartbeat, and soon that was all I could hear, all I could feel, until silence finally found me.
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t dream of my father. I didn’t dream at all. One second I was falling into a static darkness; the next my eyes were open.
It happened so fast, my heart tripped in my chest and stuttered hard before it caught up again.
“Morning, Sunshine.” Zayvion Jones, that dark Adonis, leaned down above me, his usually calm expression warmed by a smile.
“Mmm,” I managed. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. There wasn’t any spit left in me. I tried to swallow, felt like I hadn’t drunk in years. And tasted mint. Lots and lots of mint.
I knew the taste of that mint. Zayvion was Grounding the hell outta me. Which must mean I was using magic. While sleeping?
He drew his hand up my bare leg, cupping the back of my calf, up the smooth, warm inner arc of my knee, then over the lean muscle of my thigh, his thumb trailing the inside of my thigh, until he reached, much too soon, the fold of blanket draped over my hips, stomach, and chest.