Page 195 of Serpent and Shadow

I let go of Bones, walked right up to my brother, and enveloped him and Wraith both in my arms. Wraith squeaked and meowed indignantly, and then purred as she clung to first my brother and then me, as if she wasn’t sure how she felt about any of it.

When I finally let go of him, Bones was standing next to me, looking at my brother with pursed lips.

“Did they look you over?” he asked, brusque.

Arcturus surprised me, scoffing at him and rolling his eyes before he enveloped Bones in a hug. Bones maybe surprised me more by hugging him back warmly. When Archie disentangled himself, he shoved roughly at Bones’s chest.

“Piss off,” he said affectionately.

“Ow,” Bones said indignantly, rubbing his chest. “I’m a war veteran, aren’t I? You can just go shoving and hitting and pushing at people, you know. I could be badly injured. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“They made me go to hospital,” Arcturus said, giving him another of his exaggerated teenaged eye-rolls and scoffing again. “A little malnourishment, which we both already knew. They made me drink a vial that supposedly had vitamins in it but tasted like warmed-over piss, and gave me a bandage for my knee. Satisfied?”

“Not really.” Bones nodded towards the heaping plate of food by Arcturus’s now-empty seat. “Why are you getting cat hair all over your food instead of eating it?”

I snorted at that, unable to help it.

“We saved you seats,” Miranda said, patting the bench next to her and Luc. “They told us you were all right, so we’ve been waiting for you.”

“Then we got hungry,” Draken broke in, grinning at me before he stuffed a forkful of egg and sausage into his mouth.

I laughed for real that time.

I forgot my ribs though, and winced, clutching my side.

Arcturus immediately noticed. He next to me in an instant, looking alarmed.

“Are you really injured?” he asked, looking me over with worry in his eyes. “I know we all look like hell, but I forgot you were in the middle of everything, not outside like us, getting shot at by drunk, fleeing wizards with crap aim.” He looked accusingly at Bones. “The second I told this one you were inside that hall, he took off and left us there. Shouted over his shoulder some gibberish for us to wait for him out here… then poof! He was gone.”

“Yeah,” Jolie seconded, giving Bones a half-serious glare. “He really did that, you know. Ran into the flaming building filled with dark wizards without a single other person with him. Right after he nearly died from us trying to get that collar off his neck…”

“Drama queens,” Bones muttered, when I glanced up at him. “They’re exaggerating.”

Nyx burst out in a disbelieving laugh. “They bloody well aren’t!” she declared.

The witch sitting next to her smiled, and fingered some of the hair out of Nyx’s eyes, before kissing her on the cheek. Nyx blushed, and glanced up at me.

“This is Reena,” she said. “Her brother owns that pub Alaric, your brother, and your husband mirrored to last night. That’s why we were all there.”

I nodded, frowning slightly.

I didn’t bother to tell her I hadn’t heard that part of the story yet.

“Well?” Miranda said. She stomped her foot under the table, looking actually peeved. “Are you going to sit and eat with us or not?”

Bones and I glanced at one another, and he quirked an eyebrow.

I think I was more bewildered to see Elysia Warrington chatting with Reena and Nyx over the stone table while Alaric listened.

“Sure,” I said then, reaching out and taking Bones’s hand. “I’m starving.”

Between stuffing forkfuls of food into our mouths, and telling my side of what had happened the night before, parts of it, at least, I heard scattered bits and pieces of everyone else’s experiences since I’d last seen them.

Luc and Blackstone had found a way into the kitchen to dose the wine vats, as a last ditch effort to slow or disrupt the rituals, and Blackstone suggested they pull in Elysia Warrington to communicate what they’d done to me, once they realized I’d been captured and could potentially be reached inside Worm Hall, prior to the ritual’s start.

I learned Quicksilver was dead.

He’d been one of the mages fighting G.O.R.E. agents and the King’s Guard in the northern part of the campus, and got taken out by Valor and Valor and a G.O.R.E. agent not long after the remaining non-Dark Cathedral members of the Praecuri arrived and joined the fight.