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“I do—did.” He winced as everything continued to swirl around him. Tilting forward, he pressed his forehead to her chest, just as a spell cracked in the background, illuminating the wet street.
“Hold on, stay with me, all right? I can—I can use my magic to heal you. Just give me a moment.”
Her arms wrapped around him, shaking with the effort to keep him sitting upright, but Arkimedes no longer possessed any control over his tired, aching body. He closed his heavy lids, chasing an odd sensation that began to brew inside his gut. It seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him and vibrated with power.
It felt similar to the warning he’d been getting all night but different somehow. While before, he’d sensed an enemy was tracking him, now he sensed a reprieve. The cavalry was coming, headed by the king himself.
How could he possibly know that?
“Bee, he…he is coming,” Orion whispered, trying to swallow despite his parched throat.
And then darkness swallowed him whole.
31
NAVA
Enemies surrounded Nava, from the guards who had flown in minutes ago to the Crows who were fighting them from down the road. At least, they weren’t paying attention to her and Arkimedes, which gave her a chance to get away.
“Wake up,” she pleaded, choking as she gripped him by the shoulders. Arkimedes’s eyes flickered under his eyelids. “Can you hear me? We need to leave now, Ark—please.”
Tears blurred her vision as she struggled to pull air back into her lungs. She was teetering on the edge of losing what little composure she had left.
He is coming, Arkimedes had said before collapsing. His words ran circles through her mind as the urgency inside her grew. Who was on his way here? The emissary? She couldn’t think of anyone else it might be. The two guards who had been trailing them were already here, and they couldn’t have gone all the way back to the castle and warned the king of the Crows’ attack. Right?
Nava hooked both arms beneath his armpits and pulled with all her strength, but she barely managed to move him a couple of feet along the bumpy road. No matter what, she needed to get Arkimedes out of the middle of the street and hide them away from further danger.
If she could catch a brief break, her body might regain some of its strength. Then she could attempt to heal him.
She wanted to puke as her arms slipped over the slick texture of his wet shirt and grazed the sharp point of an arrow jutting out of his shoulder blade. A moan escaped his lips, but he remained unconscious—and far too heavy for her to drag under cover.
He was too big, too badly injured for her to lift without the full use of her magic. She pulled harder, and the veins in her forehead throbbed with exertion. The scent of magic burned her nostrils, drifting across from the spells the remaining two Crows were shooting at the guards.
“What are you doing?” Devon’s voice broke through her ragged breaths.
She jumped and nearly dropped Arkimedes to the ground. “Out of the rain,” she answered. If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have screamed with frustration. “And away from them.”
“It’s not raining anymore, Nava,” Devon said. He looked far worse than when she’d last seen him. Too pale, with purple lips that matched the circles around his eyes.
She leaned forward and continued to drag Arkimedes away from the battleground.
“Where are you taking him, exactly?”
“Behind the flower cart.” Dammit, why did he keep slipping?
“Going at that pace, you won’t make it there before they finish killing each other and come to find us.”
She glanced at the battle still raging in the street. The two guards were using their shadow magic against one of the Crows, all the while avoiding the arrows still raining down from a nearby building.
“Can you help me, then? Or are you just going to criticize my handiwork while you stand there like a statue?”
“I don’t think there’s any way you could call that handiwork. Move over, Cat. I’ll carry him from behind, you hold his legs. We’ll go faster that way.”
Nava pressed her lips tightly together so she wouldn’t tell him where to shove his commands. Then she let Arkimedes sink to the ground. His skin felt like it was burning through the wet layers of his clothes—and through hers. Yet his face was as pale as Devon’s.
Together, they managed to carry him behind the flower cart, skirting the large puddles that had formed while it rained. Devon leaned Arkimedes against the weathered wall behind it.
“Can you heal him?” he asked, crouching beside Arkimedes and pushing his hair away from his forehead. Then he examined the arrows jutting out from his wing and shoulder. “The Crows sometimes dip their arrowheads in poison… That must be why he is out.”
