Page 226 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Huh?”
“A potion!” Morus wrung his clawed hands. “It’s a potion to restore vitality—at least for a time. If he has a vial of it, then we might be able to spirit him back to Eden before the worst occurs.”
Gritting teeth, I laid Pete down in the ferns, praying his lungs would hold out until I’d found what he needed. Then I danced around him in a circle like a frenzied mime, desperate to lay fingertips upon an invisible door to a secret closet.
Piece of cake, right?
“What does the potion look like?” I questioned Morus during my freestyling. The Kobold knelt over Pete, counting his respirations. Despite their arguments earlier, they must’ve been pretty good friends. Pete’s declining condition had Morus praying to any deity who’d listen.
And me—Pete had me close to a nervous breakdown.
Not Pete!Not Pete! Not Pete!
“It should be indigo in color.” Morus touched his forehead in some silent invocation. “That’s its primary ingredient.”
The air beside my left hand shimmered, outlining a dark oval. Crying out, I waved my hand in the same spot until it happened again. Then I pressed my palm against something flat and solid, and the atmosphere around my hand pulled apart like theater curtains.
“Yes!” I surged into Pete’s talismanic sphere—an earthen burrow lit by fae asters. Which is where I squawked like an angry chicken.
Because every item Pete had stored in his sphere—every weapon, article of clothing, special tether, case, foodstuff, and potion—lay scattered in voluminous piles with absolutely no rhyme or reason. Like a teenage boy’s dirty clothes! Now, I liked to live in organized clutter, butnothingin Pete’s sphere was freaking organized. Which seemed like an error on his part when there might’ve come a day when someone unfamiliar with the sphere would need to break in and find something that mightsave his goddamn life!
“How does someonelivelike this?” I squealed, going berserk on his piles, chucking things. Finally, I emerged back into the jungle, arms laden with liquid indigo.
Morus paced, hands scrabbling across his furry head, when I clambered over to him and Pete. I bit out the cork of one vial and pressed its mouth to the latter’s split lips.
He didn’t drink it.
“Shit, Pete!” My shriek echoed for miles. I shoved my armload at Morus before rising on my knees over Pete’s slack, unresponsive form and started chest compressions. I thanked Danu I’d sought a comforting mantra—30, 2—after Daddy’s death—because Pete wasn’t fucking breathing! “Come on, you big jerk!” Tears streamed from my eyes. “I’m going to besomad at you if you don’t breathe for me! Right now!”
After 30 compressions, I tilted Pete’s chin upward, pinched his nostrils shut, and blew the sputtering dregs of my wind into his mouth.
He surged up off the ground and into me with a wheezing cough, then crawled onto his hands and knees to vomit out the death he’d just tasted.
Morus collapsed, praising some other divine entity I’d never heard of. I didn’t have time for prayer, though. Trembling, I wiped my tears and yanked Pete back over to me, pouring that dang potion down his gullet before he could almost die on me again.
The potion returning some of his strength, Pete was then able to stand and put one foot in front of the other, but he still needed us as crutches to hurry him back to Eden. After six Breaths of Life and more than a few close calls, we had one vial left. And miles before we’d reach the kirk.
We’d never make it. Pete’s lips were already bluish again. I could tell without trouble in the light of dawn.
Refusing defeat, I shrugged out of my book bag and handed it to Morus. “I’ve got to fly him the rest of the way.”
“Have you regained enough power to carry him?” Morus asked. “If your stores flicker out mid-flight—”
“Yeah, I know,” I snapped, tired and damn near hysterical. “I’ll crash to the ground like an asteroid and die along with Pete.” Shaking my head, I uncorked the last Breath of Life vial. “I’ll stay as low to the ground as I can. And when you meet us back in Eden, Pete will still be alive. Okay?”
Morus didn’t reply as I stomped over to Pete, who rested back upon a vine-draped palm while I prepared for another desperate act.
“I heard,” he wheezed, shivering, when I opened my mouth to explain. His eyes heavy, febrile, he reached for the vial. “I believe in you, Shorty.” Then he downed the last vial and wavered back to his huge, unsteady feet.
I thought if I soared as fast as I could, I could get us to Eden before my wind—quite slow to rebound without rest—died out. This wasn’t so. Apparently, using magic worked the same way gasoline did in cars. Going faster only used up twice the gas to get you the same distance. So, when I finally spied the Kirk of Cara on the horizon, Pete and I dipped down, my engines sputtering.
It took all my strength to heave us back up above the canopy before we smashed headlong into a rock wall, where nesting tangerine cats hissed at our intrusion. I tightened my grip around Pete’s torso, his body so hot my breasts were sweating. He hadn’t made a single sound during our near miss, but I felt his chest expanding and contracting in my arms, so I thought, given the circumstances, he was doing fine.
We stalled three more times, each scarier than the last. In hindsight, I should’ve just landed while I still had enough control to coast. But we were so dang close to Eden, and I wanted to land as close to the kirk as possible, questioning Pete’s ability to walk. Having to drag him might waste valuable time.
Of course, so would a freefall to the ground, which is what happened the last time we stalled. Nothing I did brought another wind to my sails, and we plummeted, a pair of downed fowl. Screaming for Danu’s grace, I clutched Pete to my chest and willed him to hold on.
The best Danu could give me was to land us in a mud pit. The one Pete and I had careened into from the natural water luge two nights before.
