And we can’t flash him back. The blood loss, the shock. He wouldn’t survive it.”
“Then he stays here. Starr, I need you to get my mother. Get someone who can flash, and get her here. She needs to bring her cauldron, three white candles, carnation petals, bay leaves, fresh earth, blessed water, three bloodstones, a white cloth, and leather. Enough leather to cover his arm right down to over the fingers. Her healing balm, her strongest healing potion. Have you got all that?”
“Yes. It was a sword strike,” she added. “It took his arm, and still he killed the enemy before he fell. I’ll be fast.”
“What are you going to do?” Hannah bathed the cold sweat from Colin’s face. “I cleaned the wound, and Jonah’s protected the viability of the severed limb, but we need an OR, and even then—”
“He’s not going to lose his arm.” After nudging Hannah aside, Fallon leaned over her brother. “Colin, look at me. Hear me, see me. I can give you back your arm, but it has to be your choice. It won’t be the same as it was. Do you understand?”
“No. Son of a bitch!”
“You’ll have to relearn how to use it again,” Fallon persisted. “And it’s going to hurt like hell. Pain’s part of the price. It’s your will, Colin. You have to want it, be willing to go through the pain. You need to be awake and aware. You’re strong. You can do this.”
His teeth chattered, and his eyes swirled with pain. “Can’t they, like, sew it back on?”
“They’re not sure, and we’re not sure how long it would take you to get back to New Hope.” As she spoke, she opened herself to his wound. Pain, searing, even with whatever Hannah had given him to dull it. But clean. She’d done her job well. “But I’m sure. Trust me.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and before he opened them again, she felt that will inside him, steely, snap strong.
“Maybe you could toss some magick in. Make it like a super arm.”
“Let’s just get you whole again. I need more room. We need to move him outside.”
“Out—” At Fallon’s swift, ferocious glare, Hannah bit back the objection.
She could hear the battle raging, only blocks away from the safety zone in Midtown. North now, Fallon knew, moving slowly, steadily toward the great park. As they set the gurney in what had once been a promenade near the ice rink where during the winter months people had spun and circled, slipped and tripped, Starr flashed back not only with her mother, but Ethan.
Good, she thought, the more family the better.
Lana rushed to Colin. “There’s my boy. Mom’s here. Let me see.”
“We need to cast the circle.” Fallon took the satchel her mother carried. “And fast.”
“I need to see. I might be able to—”
“You can’t.” Brisk to the point of cold, Fallon cut off her mother’s words, the voice that struggled not to shake. “I’ve looked. But we can. The Book of Spells is in me, that knowledge. There’s a chance, but we cast the circle first. Ethan, you’ll help. Set the candles in a triangle at Colin’s head. Light them. Starr, roust some of the troops off rotation. Magick can draw magick. I don’t want any interference.”
“How can we help?” Jonah asked.
“Get your weapons, stand guard. Mom, the circle.”
“All right, all right. You hold on.” As the scarf she’d tossed on snapped in the wind, Lana pressed a kiss to Colin’s brow. And with Fallon and Ethan, cast the protective circle around her oldest son.
“Float the cauldron over the candles,” Fallon told her mother. “And in the cauldron put seven carnation petals, seven bay leaves, one bloodstone.”
Fallon took the white cloth and, pricking her finger with her knife tip, carefully wrote Colin’s name.
“This is my brother, blood of my blood. Know his name.” She wrapped another bloodstone in the cloth, added it to the cauldron. “This is water, blessed by the mother. Know her love. This is earth, given brother to brother.” She nodded to Ethan. “One fistful,” she ordered. “Know his faith.”
She lifted her hands and the wind came in stronger, in circling whirls. “This is air, stirred by the sister. Know my devotion. And now this air lifts the flames on candles white and pure, to offer these elements. Rise, rise, rise, flame and power, rise, rise, rise, a healing tower. Merge water, earth, wind, and fire, rise straight, rise true, rise higher.”