“Yeah,” Tally growls. Carefully, he slides Imran’s frail body off his shoulders, letting London support the boy’s weight. Then he steps directly into my space, his thumb grazing my knuckles. “I’ll go first. I want you to see how bad it is before you step into it. If it’s too awful, Rory… if you can’t take it, you run back to the block and hide.” His golden-brown eyes fix on mine. “I’ll get Sky. I’ll find another way.”
I look up at him, my heart aching in a way I don’t understand. “Just go dive into Frank’s slime, Tally. We’ve got this.”
He nods and moves so François can press his thumb hard against the center of Tally’s forehead.
Tally’s body snaps rigid. He doesn’t scream—he can’t. I watch in horror as his face contorts, his skin turning a sickly, ashen gray. It seems to go on forever. That painting by Munch? The Scream?
Nothing on this.
Finally, François releases him, and Tally falls to his knees hitting the concrete with a thud. “The boy next,” he says.
“Will he survive it?” I whisper.
“I cannot say.”
Fuck.
“He has to try,” Tally wheezes from the floor, his arm moving like it’s made of lead. “We can’t leave him.”
“Be gentle,” I warn François as he presses his palm to Imran’s hot forehead. His touch is delicate, almost caring. A beat later François nods. “It is done, he needed the barest amount. And now you, my dear.”
I meet his dark gaze and nod. His fingers cup my jaw, a touch far more gentle than he was with Taliesin. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, then presses his thumb to my brow.
Instantly, a clinging, black film wraps around my mind, suffocating my memories, my very name. His poison slides down my spine, a cold, oily slick that turns my blood to sludge. I’m freezing and boiling alive at the same time. I can feel the toxins invading my veins. I’m drowning in ink, and fall to my knees as the suffocating pressure eases a little. My lungs forget how to pull air; they only know how to swallow the dark. Every cell in my body feels like it’s being rewritten in a language I don’t understand.
And my heart.
Wump—ppp. Wump—ppp.
I feel it hit that patch of scar tissue. I want to scream but my jaws are clamped shut. But my mind wails out into the darkness begging for help.
Tally reaches a shaky hand to me. As I regain my equilibrium, I focus on London.
How is he going to cope with this?
The man has a crazy grin on his face, like the thought of being filled with black magic is the most exciting thing he can imagine.
I don’t know what’s happened through his life, but whatever it is has him responding in ways a usual human…just wouldn’t.
François is not looking too great. I remember how healing Tally took it out of him. This “process” is doing the same.
The Brit’s head snaps back, and for a second, the constant twitching of his body stops. He looks…almost at peace.
After another minute, London is released.
“We have to go, now.” François’s face is gaunt, the shadows under his eyes deepening into bruised pits. He shoves the exterior door open, and the Null-Wards hit like a physical wall of static, but the magic just… slides past, allowing me to stumble into the midnight air.
The freezing rain hits me, mixed with the acrid bite of the perimeter. Lights from the patrol towers sweep the yard—long fingers of white searching for life.
“Move,” Tally rasps.
We run, then cower in the lee of a steel wall, topped with glinting coils of razor wire.
Now what?
“Transmutation.” François answers my unspoken question, his voice more strained than I’ve ever heard it. “But it will alert the wards, be prepared to run.”
The green light erupts from his palms and he presses them against the thick metal. I watch, nauseated, as the air begins to warp and the solid steel ripples like water. Under his touch, the metal looks like it’s softening, turning into something brittle and porous.
