“I just was getting my stuff so I could go hang out with my friends,” I mumbled. “We’re going to stick together. We don’t want to be separated. It's dangerous here. We have to stay together.”
The Sandman stood to the side, his eyes locked on me. “Really, and how were you going to do that?”
I shouldn’t tell him. I knew I shouldn’t. I put a finger to my lips. “It’s a secret.” Yup, slurring my words now. Awesome. Just damn awesome.
“Tell me the secret,” he said, his voice sharp as always.
“I think Rory is hot. But Ethan is hot too,” I blurted out, and his face went a careful blank.
Mara laughed softly. “You need to be more specific, love. You know that. The silkworm is too strong for her to think clearly.”
Love? Who the hell was she calling love? Not . . . “Rufus, are you and Mara an item? Are you like—” I leaned halfway out of the bed, “—banging?” She caught me, and I blinked up at her even as I spoke to the Sandman. “She is super cute and so nice. Which makes me wonder how you two—” I made a rather graphic motion with my hands, which only tightened the lines on his face and made Mara laugh harder.
The Sandman leaned over me. “How were you going to stay with your friends?” Each word was clean and crisp. I nodded even though the not stoned/drunk/poisoned part of my brain was screaming at me to shut the hell up.
“Ethan spelled our house pendants on one side to look like the coin of the House of Unmentionables. We’re all going to stay there. Well, except for Ethan.” My head lolled to the side. “Probably best. He might try and kiss me again. I’m not sure if I like that or not. He’s too . . . Ethan. Too sneaky.”
Gah! This was terrible, the worst thing that could be happening, and I couldn’t stop it.
Mara’s hands were gentle as she put a cloth on my forehead. “The fever has started. You got her to me just in time, but even so, she is going to need all the help she can get.”
The Sandman grunted. “Keep her as quiet as you can, I’m going to gather her crew.”
“Don’t hurt them.” I sat up and half fell out of the bed. “They didn’t do anything.”
His aviators were back on, which meant I couldn’t get even a glimpse of what he might be feeling.
“Shh.” Mara pushed me gently onto the bed. “He is bringing them here to stay with you. To help you. They will help you. Rufus will help you.”
I blinked up at her. “Is he good in the sack? Is that why you’re with him?”
Holy damn hand grenade! Did I really just ask that?
Her smile was wide, and her cheeks flushed pink as she winked at me. “The strong silent types always are, my young friend. Like your Rory. I’d put my money on him rather than the House of Wonder boy, who spends too much time preening to be any good for a woman.”
Dying, I was dying of embarrassment, but my mouth didn’t think so. “He doesn’t see me like that, even if sometimes . . .” I shrugged. “Colt did. He had pretty eyes, and he liked me.”
“A third man? Well, look at you go. Maybe he’d be the best of both worlds, then. If I remember correctly, he has two houses he could follow.” She kept working on me, her magic circling around and through me, over and over again, and I wondered why. Some cut wounds and a little poison were no big deal, were they? We’d survived worse in the trials. I was warming up, and I just wanted to close my eyes.
“No, keep your eyes open, girl.” Mara’s hand shook me, and her voice dug into my ears. “Eyes open, do not close them.”
There was a scuffling of feet, and then Wally was hanging over top of me, her wild mass of bright red hair sticking out in every direction, her mouth hanging open. “Wild, eighty-three percent of deaths related to Shades are linked to the drava spira and silkworm combination, because when those poisons work together, there is no cure! This is terrible. This can’t be happening!”
And then she collapsed, sobbing, on my chest. Orin pulled her off, his shadowed figure darkening the bright space. I waved a hand at them. “Hey. Where is Pete?”
Pete shuffled forward, his bag over his shoulder. “The Sandman said all of us are staying here in this room tonight. Wally is wrong, isn’t she?”
I had no idea if Wally was wrong. “Probably not. She’s rarely wrong.” I yawned. “Cool beans, glad you’re staying. We’re together.”
A wash of fatigue rolled over me.
“Not cool beans,” Mara said softly. “They are here for one reason, and one reason only. I can’t heal you without them, my young friend. Wally is right. You are dying. But we can save you.”
8
Dying? I was dying? That didn’t seem right, I didn’t even feel sick. Though now that Mara had said it, there was a tingling sensation around my heart that hadn’t been there before. “Hmm. Are you sure? I’d like to live a little longer.” Maybe actually kiss a boy or two, despite what I’d thought earlier about staying focused.
Mara snorted softly, though there was a tightness around her eyes that suggested she wasn’t so at ease. “You Shades, all the same. Cracking jokes even in the face of death.”
“Nope, not a Shade—” No, no, no, don’t say it! My inner voice was trying to shut my mouth up. But it was no good. “—I’m a Chameleon, like that bitch Frost. But not like her. I’m not like her. I won’t be like her,” I whispered, and then my eyes shot to my four friends, who stood there, staring at me.
With the exception of Orin, who already knew my secret, my friends stiffened, and Wally gasped as she lifted her head. “What?”
Orin stepped up. “That’s why she was so good in every trial. Why she so effortlessly connected with each of us, despite our obvious differences. I believe she planned to tell you all tonight, once we were settled. I only know because I saw her tokens all drawn at the end of the trials.”
I gave him a wobbly smile, my defenses down, along with my ability to keep my mouth shut. “What Orin said.”
Wally pulled back from me. “Like Frost. But Frost was . . . she was feeding off those kids.”
Mara sighed. “She is your friend, and she is dying. But because of her connection to you, she could survive if you are willing to help her. If you give her your energy while I draw the poisons out.”
Could survive, not would.
“Anything,” Pete said first. “We wouldn’t have made it through the trials without her, and . . . she’s my friend. Our friend.”
“She saved me,” Gregory said. “I owe her my life.”
Orin and Wally nodded their agreement. The Sandman had not come back, and I had a gut feeling he was trying to get Ethan to come to this little soiree.
Of course he would come. Not because I’d saved his life—literally—but because it would give him a chance to play the hero. The big shot. He’d love seeing me laid low.
But what if he didn’t? What would that say about him?
I closed my eyes, and Mara whispered in my ear, “You have to connect to them like you did to save Ethan.”
Someone took my hand, and even with my eyes shut, I knew it was Wally. I hung on to her, and then I felt each of the others touch Wally. When Orin put his hand on her shoulder, a burst of energy that was both dark and light flowed from him to her, through to me. When Gregory touched her other shoulder, the energy was more gold and silver, sparkling as it rushed down to me and sunk into my skin. Pete took Wally’s free hand, interlocking his fingers with hers, and I felt her surprise and his embarrassment, but he didn’t let go of the more intimate touch.