missing, until warm fingers graze mine and I turn.
Bastian’s lying on the cot beside me, his hair a mess. “We should really try to work on our fainting. Perhaps we can make it a once-an-adventure type thing?”
“How about a never thing?” Ferrick chimes in, ignoring Bastian’s wrinkling nose. “I didn’t sign on to be a personal healer.”
“I’m not sure we’d even be able to call it an adventure if there was never fainting, mate.”
I curl my fingers around his outstretched hand, letting the warmth of our connection settle between us. My forced laughter sounds like a croaking frog, hoarse and painful. “How long have we been out?”
“You?” Bastian’s teasing tone takes a serious edge. “Two days. I was awake after the first, but they put me on bed rest because of my … symptoms.”
“You both were having seizures,” Nelly clarifies sternly, her eyes narrowing when Bastian tries to edge around her words. My chest falls when he steers his attention from my face, refusing to look at me. But I don’t need Nelly’s words to know that something’s wrong with him. I feel as though my body’s been struck by a cannon, each movement sluggish, the pain dull but distant.
This pain belongs to Bastian, and I know at once it’s because he used soul magic.
Though Bastian has access to the magic because of Kaven’s curse, he’s not a Montara; his body isn’t equipped to handle it. Every one of Kaven’s followers who chased after soul magic either wound up dead or deteriorated. It even got to Kaven in the end, skewing his perception and driving his bloodlust until it consumed him entirely.
I try to catch his attention, but once more his focus turns flighty, purposely avoiding me.
“You were too reckless.” Ferrick’s the one who breaks the silence, white-knuckling the sheets of the cot I lie upon. “You’re the queen now, Amora. You need to stop throwing yourself into danger.”
“I always seem to make it out okay.” The words are out before I can stop them, tense and bitter. “It’s everyone else around me who gets hurt.”
Bastian’s lips screw tight enough to tell me it was the wrong thing to say. But it’s also the truth. No matter how many times I dive into a fight, there’s always someone left worse off. Father. Aunt Kalea. Mira. Bastian.
Nelly clears her throat as if to ease the tension away. She’s seated by my leg, cleaning it with a cloth that drips with a thick yellow liquid. Ferrick’s seated across from her, watching intently.
“I can close your wounds as many times as you need me to,” he grumbles, as if able to sense my stare, “but I can’t manifest more blood. I appreciate what you did for us, but it’s our job to protect you. Our kingdom needs you right now.”
His edge of warning gives me pause, and I fight back a cringe I don’t want him to see.
“I’m sorry.” I grit the words out, not favoring the taste of them. Rage pulses Ferrick’s jaw.
“Your wounds are sealed.” He stands but doesn’t move, having nowhere to go. “Between you, Bastian, and Elias, I only had the energy to keep you from death’s door. You’re going to have a scar, but we have ointments to help with that, and once we’re done here I can try to heal it, but it might be a slow—”
I sit up too quickly, blood rushing to my head and a dull throbbing in my thigh making me bite back a curse. “Elias is alive?”
Ferrick’s spine straightens, guilt eating into the edges of his frown. “I didn’t know what else to do. He was watching me as I was taking care of you and Bastian. He kept staring, and … Yeah. He’s alive.”
I steal a look at Bastian, whose cool eyes cut to mine. Elias saw Bastian use soul magic. If word about that got out before we were ready to tell the kingdom the truth, it could ruin everything.
“There’s something you should know.” Though Ferrick speaks gently, something in his tone draws my attention. “The poison … It’s affected his mind. He doesn’t seem to remember who he is.”
If it’s true, then it’s a relief. But I can’t afford to take any risks; already my mind is spinning on how to keep this a secret.
“What you did to Elias … did you plan that?” Until now, Ilia has remained silent. Shadows fill the hard lines of her face, aging her.
“I did what I had to do to stay alive,”