Page 229 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
The other zephyrists chuckled.
“Aye, Amy,” Riordan confirmed. “It’s just that simple.”
“Damn,” I said. “Guess I could’ve done that the night I started the dang thing.”
“Can’t blame yourself for what you didn’t ken,” Riordan replied.
From there, we broke into pairs. Riordan chose me, the one in need of instruction, and we flew together to the closest wildfire cropping. Being any further from Eden while Gentian’s harbingers had their noses to the ground, trying to sniff me out, was flirting with disaster.
I shuddered, landing before a sweltering wall of gluttony. Having devoured everything for miles around, my flames subsisted on the coals they’d shat out like greasy fast-food. Sulfurous ash crackled in the air. Cinders coated my lips, and I tasted the tang of my fury at the Leprechauns, now rampaging to flank us.
Jeesh, I thought.Nowthat’sconviction!
Already coughing, Riordan shielded his green face with a wrinkled, homespun scarf. He handed me my own before beginning with, “Siphoning’s a simple concept, mind you, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.” He cleared his throat, blinked eyes reddening in the dry heat. “Novices often find things go muzzy. If your head starts reeling, take a wee breather. Mother knows you’ll need it.
“Now, this is the most stubborn finger of wildfire we’ve encountered. Water scarcely quells it. We’ve been siphoning here from the start. Somehow, we’ve held it at bay but can’t seem to douse it. So, we’ll likely be at this until sunsdown.”
My mouth twisted. “Nothing like giving the new girl the tough job, huh?”
Crinkles appeared around Riordan’s green eyes, his scarf hiding a grin. “I’ve been assured the new girl is worthy to the task.”
I heaved a sigh. “If this is going to take all day, then we better get started.” The pull of Pete’s bedside was very real. Even with him showing improvement, I could barely stomach the idea of leaving him for an entire day. “Show me what to do.”
“Aye, then.” Clearing his throat, Riordan tugged down his makeshift mask and inhaled.
After what amounted to three hours of siphoning, I strolled, soot-streaked and smoky, through the kirk’s gates, a siphoning maven. Sure, I got hella dizzy several times, but I hadn’t needed the breaks Riordan thought I would. And together, with my boggling endurance and Riordan’s mastery of zephyrism, we’d extinguished 20 square miles of wildfire, maybe more.
Comfortable letting Pete be for another few more minutes, I tasked my filthy, ashen self with pillaging the kirk’s many garden beds of cantaloupes—or what resembled cantaloupes despite being aqua inside. Pete’s recovery required a hearty consumption of vitamin C, also a scarcity in Eden. Seriously, it was a wonder Adam and Eve didn’t have scurvy when Danu expelled them to Earth.
I was just yanking one of the bigger rocklike fruits off its vine against the temple wall when I heard a loud and urgent, “Amy!”
Imagining the worst, I grabbed my basket and scrambled back through the gate, where I found Cissus, beaming in his linen infirmary smock—only worn while doctoring.
I halted before the athletic Middling, unable to breathe.
“We’ve trounced the phage,” he said, hazel eyes shimmering. “His fever has finally broken, and he’s eating!”
Though it took me a moment to understand, once I got it—that Pete wasfinallyin recovery—I squealed and flung my arms around the healer.
Cissus hugged me in return. “He’s been asking for you,” he teased.
Flushing, I scampered back to Eden, cantaloupes flying everywhere.
PetegruntedwhenIcareened into him for a hug. He’d been sitting up, half-naked on his rumpled cot, chewing a piece of fish jerky, when I tore into his cabin-esque room, a copper-topped hurricane. I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek quite hard to his chest, which had lost a bit of its meat but none of its heart.
He squirmed against me, gulping like a prepubescent boy meeting the girl of his dreams, before his arms finally squeezed me close to hisnormalbody heat. “I suppose now it’s my turn to thank you,” he croaked, his throat still raw from coughing. “For all thatyou’vedone.”
I giggled out weeks of pent-up anxiety. “Any time, dude.”
“And I’m truly sorry. For how I acted while—”
“I don’t want apologies.” I withdrew to stand over him, arms folded. The dim light of the fae asters highlighted his gaunt cheeks and unkempt beard. “I want an explanation.”
Pete’s dark brows lifted clear to his hairline. He stared, lost for words.
“Not aboutthat,” I corrected myself in a fluster. “I know why you acted the way you did while you were feverish. I mean—whydid you run off to sacrifice yourself like that?”
Looking like he’d lost his regained appetite, Pete glanced away.
