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Honestly, he hadn’t known a person could feel terror this often. Marriage was both the greatest joy and an endless source of heart-stabbing fear. He rolled her over, so she was on her back on the ground. Eyes open, staring sightlessly at the dark sky.
“Is she . . . dead?” Gunnora said from over his left shoulder. “That shouldn’t happen with the spell frequently, and with three of us speaking it—”
“This was aknownrisk?” Eli asked.
Gunnora shrugged and scooped up Chester’s heart. “Not if she was as powerful as she seemed.”
Beatrice was growling, a sort of rumbling sound that Eli was well aware could turn into more violence. Marcus was silent as he walked off to see to the fae who were all waiting on his orders.
Eli crouched down and touched Geneviève’sthroat.There was no pulse. Panic washed over him.
Iggy was barely upright, but he stumble-crawled to Geneviève. His hand hovered over her skin. “Not gone.”
“Which means what?” Eli lowered his mouth to her and gave her breath.
Iggy gave her chest compressions. Then he said, “Take me home after this.”
Eli went to lean down to breathe for her again, just as Iggy said, “Here.”
In the Master Hexen’s hand was a small ball of what looked like a storm cloud filled with lightning. “Shock her.”
Then Iggy collapsed, convulsing slightly.
Beatrice tugged Iggy backward, met Eli’s gaze, and smiled. It was a wobbly smile, which was not encouraging, but she was still hopeful at least.
Praying to each and all possible beings, Eli pressed that ball of lightning into his wife’s chest. At first, nothing happened. He felt her pulse point again. “Nothing.”
Whatever it was to do, it hadn’t, and Iggy was unconscious, and this wasn’t Eli’s sort of magic. “Could we do magic here now?”
“No,” Gunnora called out. “That’s why he’s . . . like that.”
On the ground Iggy was convulsing from violating whatever magical rule he’d broken. But pain, all pain, was a worthwhile price if there was something Eli could do to save his wife, but he wasn’t sure if his magic would hurt Geneviève, too, since they were bound.
Then, Geneviève let out a scream, a hellacious sound that lasted for several full minutes.
When the horrifying sound stopped, she opened her eyes. Whatever it was that had happened, her body was awake and sitting upright.
“Did we win?” she asked, voice raspy.
Eli nodded.
“Chester is frozen,” Beatrice said, pointing to the ground beside Geneviève.
Geneviève smiled. “And you’re all alive?”
“Harlow has a broken leg,” a faery reported. “One of the other relations of Lady Alice is dead. Twelve fae, and several dead things.”
As she listened, Geneviève looked stricken.
“It could have been much worse,” Eli said. “War has loss.”
“The heart?” Geneviève asked, looking around.
For a moment, Eli wasn’t sure. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he cared either. Geneviève was safe. Chester was stopped. All he wanted was to carry his wife home, barricade the doors and hide away with her.
There was family to attend to. There were friends to reassure. There was a Hexen Master flailing intermittently as Gunnora watched over him, looking far softer now that her memories were apparently returned.
And his uncle, the king, was standing awkwardly beside thedraugrqueen.
