My eyes misted over with tears.
“You must find the cure,” Lia said, looking to Holly. “I only know only that it is here.”
“Yes, right.” Holly wrung her hands together. “He has to have journals or something. Notes.”
“Tell us what to look for. We’ll all help,” Victor said.
“First, though…” I turned to Simon, hating myself for disturbing what could be his final moments with his mate. “The sentinels upstairs were going to deploy the Cerberus Protocol. I told them what was happening and that Titania was here.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah… They burst inside right before Lia magicked me down here.”
“I’ll go up and give an update,” Holden offered.
“Check on Pilar and the others as well,” Simon said.
Holden headed out while the rest of us spread out through the laboratory. Following Holly’s instructions, we all rummaged through magical clutter, leather-bound books, and loose stacks of paper. I had no idea what we were looking for, but I laid out anything that looked remotely like chemical equations or formulas.
Sebastian coughed, a wheezing, rattling sound that made me cringe. My hands shook and I fumbled a stack of papers. Cole rushed over and helped me sort through them.
“Have you found anything yet?” Simon yelled, an angry and panicked edge to his voice.
“It’s okay,” Sebastian said, voice thick with sickness and death.
“It’s not. You’re not going out like this. Not when…not when we have so much left to do.”
“Did a lot of things. Had a good life.” He squeezed Simon and dropped his brow onto the mage’s shoulder. “A great life with you, baby. But you gotta let me go. You can’t let me hurt these kids. And you can’t let me hurt you either.”
“Seb—”
“I feel it changing me.”
“Titania said—”
“Doesn’t matter if the cure is down here if there’s no time to make it.” Sebastian reached for Simon’s gun. “I love you. I love you more than I love my next breath. And that’s why I have to do this.”
“Please,” I pleaded with Sebastian, lunging forward and putting my hand on his wrist. “Just give us a few more minutes. If you turn, I can contain you.”
“I will contain him,” Lia said.
Matt nodded in agreement. “If you turn, man, I’ll do it. You owe it to yourself and Simon to spend every second you have until we know you can’t be saved.”
Sebastian’s shoulders shook, but whether it was emotion or the effects of the virus, I didn’t know. A thin trickle of dark blood ran from the corner of his mouth, then he spit another tooth. Lia wiped the blood from his chin with her sleeve and met my gaze.
Please, I begged to whatever powers were listening. Don’t take him.
The group rummaged with renewed fervor. I caught a glimmer of something shiny out of the corner of my eye near an uneven stack of books partially hidden beneath rubble from the fight. I struggled to clear away the chunks of stone and mortar.
Victor joined me. We made a mess of it all together, then he jerked left and glanced down. “Hey, what kind of Necronomicon-looking bullshit is this?” he asked, coming up with a heavy, flesh-bound tome. “Ugh, it smells rank. And it’s greasy.”
Holly zipped over, almost snatching it. “Those carvings on the cover are the symbols for the Nosoi.”
“What whaddawho?”
“In mythology, they’re the Greek personifications of sickness, disease, and plague,” she replied to him.
“That sounds bad,” Cole said. “Really bad.”
After flipping through a few pages of the book, Holly’s expression transformed into sheer disgust. “Bad doesn’t begin to cover it, but this is what that asshole used. He has notes written in every blank space.”
“Can you undo what he’s done?”
“I think so.”
“Just tell us what you need,” Victor said. He touched her back and she calmed, drawing in a deep breath. Then she set to work.
Holly worked feverishly, mixing fluids in beakers and lighting a magical Bunsen burner. I watched her chant over a dish, scrape the essence of a gooey plant into a vial, then perform a desperate ritual.
None of us dared to interrupt her. Whenever she directed us to grab something, we did so in silence.
“This is blood magic,” she said. “That’s how he mutated the virus. It’s science and the occult, bound together in blood and suffering. And only through blood and suffering can it be undone. It can’t be cured like the previous strains.”
“Are you saying we can't help Sebastian?” Gabriel asked.
“I’m saying there has to be a sacrifice to finish the remedy. Alessandro and Tabatha can probably fashion a cure from all this with the proper equipment and time, but Sebastian doesn’t have time. It could take them days.”
And by then our mentor would be long dead and cremated, leaving Simon with only a jar of ashes. My heart clenched.
“What do we have to give?” I asked.
Simon stepped away from Sebastian. “Whatever price there is to pay, I’ll give it.”
“No, Sky is on to something,” Holly said. “The greater the sacrifice, the greater blood magic becomes. But the kind of sacrifice I need for Sebastian would…” She swallowed. “It’s not optimal.”
“Someone has to die to save a life,” Simon guessed. “I don’t—”
“He would be miserable without you and racked with guilt for the rest of the life you saved, Simon. No.”
“Then what can we give?”
“A part of ourselves. Something special and unique. Something it pains you to part with, something great enough that the sum of these things is an equivalent exchange to the life we have to save. I need a physical sacrifice bound by a magical and spiritual gift, each valuable to their wielders.”
“Is it permanent?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“So it is.”
“Then he can have my gift of magic,” Simon said.
I shook my head. “No. The school needs you. We need you as a teacher, and the SBA needs you as a sentinel. That’s not a good choice.” I stepped forward and thought of how much I enjoyed shining. The way vampires burst into radiant cones of fire and ember the moment I brought my wings into the plane. The warmth curved over my shoulders and lit the underground lair with color. Then I passed that color, and all the light that came with it, to Holly. My wings dimmed. I didn’t know if they’d still work or if I’d ever fly again, but it was worth it to see Sebastian trotting alongside Simon again in his wolf form.
“It’s worth Sebastian living.”
“Sky,” Gabriel said quietly.
“I made up my mind.”
“No. I wasn’t going to talk you out of it. I’m…I’m really proud of you.”
I thought Simon would cry. “You didn’t have to do that, Skylar.”
“I did. Because if it was Gabriel, I would want someone to make the same sacrifice. It’s the right thing to do.”
Tenderly, Holly tucked the glowing ball of faerie essence into the cylinder. “That’s it for magic.”
Victor stepped up next. “I think I have a sacrifice I can make.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
He smiled tightly. “My ability to walk in the daylight is a gift that’s bound to my soul, right? Hurry up and take it before I freak and change my mind. I won’t regret it, but I don’t trust myself not to chicken out.”
The room quieted again, and then Sebastian tried to babble something that sounded like protest. Victor would be dooming himself to walking in the shadows forever, like a nosferatu. For all of his life.
For a moment, I thought Holly would say no. Then she lay her palm over his heart, and he jerked, as if she’d nailed him, and she withdrew something dark and covered in wispy tendrils of shadow. It did not want to go, and it fought to return where it belonged, fighting and struggling all the while. She placed it in
to the cylinder and clapped her hand over it before it could escape.
Lia touched Simon’s shoulder. “This one is meant for you. You’ve been thinking about this for a while. And now this is your chance to both sacrifice and receive something you’ve wanted very much.”
“Yeah…it is. It makes sense now. It’s not my life I need to give for Sebastian.” He sucked in a breath between his teeth. “It’s my wizard’s life span. I don’t need to live six hundred years. I want to grow old with him.”
“But—”
“No buts, Scruffy. It scares me, but losing you terrifies me more.” Simon’s sacrifice looked like a star, glowing and bright, gleaming with the iridescence of opal.
Holly took it into the cylinder and held it between both hands, dropping her chin. “And my sacrifice is doing the ritual to reverse it. Blood magic always comes with a cost.” While we watched, Holly slid the knife over her own palm. She dipped two fingers into the blood that welled up and drew an intricate rune.
My friend would be losing a portion of her soul to work the spell, as black magic cared not for intentions. It could take her years to earn it back, if she ever did at all.
Everyone had stains to some degree. In hindsight, I’d seen the bleak smudges on Hoffman’s aura, but he’d felt what he did was justified, a righteous cause. Watching the colors fade from Holly’s aura told me she loathed doing it. She knew it was wrong, but was willing to do it if the ends justified the means.
And that was what made it affect her that much more.
She channeled the gathered energy into a glowing elixir then drew it into a sterile syringe.
“This is going to hurt,” she warned Sebastian.
“That’s fine. Can’t be worse than losing teeth.”
“Soon as you grow those back, we’re hitting up Gibson’s together for tomahawks,” Gabriel said.
Holly injected him, then we all held our breaths.
30
Choice
Our rescue and extraction from the lair became a circus the moment everyone set eyes on Lia. Then they were divided over throwing Sebastian into quarantine or putting him down.
“Over my dead body,” Simon growled. “He’s been cured!”
“We don’t know that, Bostwick. Look at him. We can see the bite—”
“There will be no killing today.” Lia cut in, her voice slicing through the conversation with the surgical precision of a knife. Everyone stopped, staring at her, and suddenly we were no longer in the lobby, but standing on PNRU grounds just outside of the laboratory used by the Kostas twins. Lia must have pulled whatever she had from her reserves. She stumbled, Sebastian went down on one knee, and my arms almost gave out from the struggle to keep both of them from face-planting.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she groaned. She’d only brought three of us, Simon, Sebastian, and me.
Why me?
“Queen Titania! It’s Queen Titania!” someone shrieked across the quad.
“You definitely shouldn’t have done that,” Sebastian agreed. “But I’m selfish and I appreciate it just the same. Losing the life you all just saved would have sucked.”
Especially after our sacrifices. I felt bad, swept away to the safety of PNRU while the others were forced to clean up the mess.
“Don’t feel bad,” Lia said.
Is she reading my mind?
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’m trying not to.”
Students started swarming, asking questions, glowing half-fae and glitzy wizards surrounded us.
“She’s not well! Can’t you people see she isn’t well right now?” I shouted, trying to guide my friends up the steps.
Even Simon bellowed for them to all back away, in his most authoritative, I-Am-Your-Professor voice. But no, everyone wanted to touch the queen and kiss her feet and there were mages eager to talk to her, fae wanting to smell her fucking hair. The crowd became ridiculous. I’d never seen students behave like this with Oberon.
Suddenly, we had all the space we needed, thanks to a Prismatic Barrier that bloomed around us and pushed the onlookers back. Then Oberon was there, and Lia was in his arms, swept up like a princess in a fairy tale. Dain and Eldan each took Sebastian by an arm and assisted him inside, relieving me of the burden of trying to support a 250-pound man. My biceps screamed in relief. The small of my back hurt—so much for lifting with my legs, not with my back.
“Are you hurt?” Oberon asked.
“No,” Lia replied in an awestruck whisper. She looked terrified and elated all at once. “Tired is all.”
“Always in a rush with your powers,” he chided, but the gentleness in his tone took out any sting. “All should be quiet now.”
“I—” Lia blinked, her startled gaze shifting to me then back up to Oberon’s face. “I don’t hear a single thought.”
“The least I could do.”
Tabatha and Alessandro met us inside their lab. If either one was surprised to see the faerie monarchs, they didn’t show it. They took Sebastian to a table and began their examination, speaking with Holly and Simon the whole while. I remained out of the way, suddenly exhausted.
“I’m fine to stand now,” Lia said softly. Oberon hesitated at first, but he set her down on her feet and took a respectful step back. I actually admired his restraint because I knew how much he’d yearned for this exact moment.
Well, maybe not this exact moment. Studying his face, the fae king actually looked perplexed. Frustrated. It made me wonder how their previous reunions had gone. My glance slid to Eldan and Dain, the latter staring at me.
“What?” I asked, uncomfortable beneath my mentor’s scrutiny.
“What have you done to your wings?”
I lifted my chin and squared my shoulders. “The right thing to save Sebastian.”
“I see.”
I waited for a rebuke, but none came. Instead, he smiled and bowed his head. Even Eldan gave me a little bow.
“I feel many sacrifices were made, but much good was done,” Oberon said as turned his full attention on me. “Once again, Skylar, you have removed a dark stain from this world.”
“Not alone. This was a huge team effort.”
“So it was. Your doctor’s demise is cause for celebration, though I sense the puppet master behind his machinations is still a threat. We must all be vigilant.” Oberon sighed, but then his attention turned to Lia. “Even so, the world is a brighter place again with Titania returned to us.”
Lia’s cheeks lost a little of their color.
“It is indeed,” Dain said. “Welcome back, my queen.”
“Avalon shall be brighter for having our liveliest star returned,” Eldan agreed.
Oberon touched the small of my back. “Thank you, Skylar.” A sensation like Icy Hot or Tiger Balm, without the menthol chill, spread around my aching muscles. When it faded, the pain was gone.
“W-Welcome.”
The king turned to Lia next. “Come, my love. It’s time to leave.”
“No. I want to go home.”
“That is where I plan to take you, Ti—”
“No. My home. I want my bed here.”
“Oh.”
That “oh” said volumes, held pain I’d never thought could be expressed in one word. Regret covered Lia’s face immediately, but then she turned and ran outside.
“I’ll go after her,” I offered, refusing to look behind me.
Despite her bare feet, Lia was worlds faster than me, and I almost didn’t catch up to her. My dull, light-less wings seemed slower than I remembered, or maybe the loss of speed was psychological.
She shoved her way into the townhouse and I followed.
“Lia, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t stop for me. She beelined upstairs, into her room, and threw herself into the bed with a small pile of stuffed animals, squeezing one and sobbing.
For lack of knowing what else to do, I sat down beside her and rubbed her back. Gabriel sent a couple non-emergent texts—I glanced at the sc
reen to make sure—and time marched on, but Lia sobbed until she almost dry-heaved. I never left.
“You can talk whenever you’re ready,” I told her, when it seemed she was finally able to catch her breath. She had buried her face against her pillow, hiding it. “Take your time.”
Her head shifted slightly. “You’re the only one who cares to be patient.”
“I know, right? They’re fae, but I think their excitement got the best of them.” I hesitated a moment before asking, “What’s wrong, Lia? Something was up before Oberon even suggested that.”
“I know who I am, but I don’t know if I want to be her,” Lia said in a quiet voice, more melodic than ever, but still hoarse from crying. She sat up beside me, moving slowly, and pushed her long red hair out of her eyes. “I love this world; I love my parents. I love my little brother and sisters. I love television, movies, and fast food. I love you.”
“Lia,” I breathed. None of my friends, save for Gabe who was my mate, had ever said that.
“You’re my best friend, Sky. The very moment I met you in the student center, I knew we were destined to become good friends. As much as I love Oberon, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go away to Tir na Nog and leave this all behind.” And then a quiet little sob left her, a choked sound that was too undignified for a queen to make. “I don’t want to forget what it’s like to be a person and more than a queen.”
I took her in my arms, hugging her tight. “You won’t. You could never forget that now that you’ve learned it. Fate happens for a reason, right? The Heartflame chose me because it knew I’d keep it safe for you. Which means maybe it was destined for you to be born to a human parent and raised in this mortal realm. Maybe…it was time to learn how to relate to humanity.”
“I’ll forget.”
“You won’t forget. Give yourself more credit. Do fae ever forget anything? Do they forget the wrongs committed? Do they forget favors owed? Grudges?”
Her sniffles quieted. “No.”
“Then you won’t forget the lessons humanity has taught you. I love you so much, and I have every faith in you ruling the faerie realm alongside Oberon as fate intended, with fresh eyes and a new understanding. Teach him, Lia.”
The Plague Doctor (The Paranormal University Files: Skylar Book 4) Page 26
