Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(54)

I heaved a long breath. Konstantin was looking at me like he had seen some alien monster.

Alessandro’s right shoulder was bloody. I rushed to him. He met me halfway.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“It’s a scratch.”

A strange hissing noise came from the main house.

Runa.

I turned around.

The nightbloom flailed as if stabbed with a high-voltage wire. Its roots sagged. Its bloom drooped backward, toward us, its petals turning a dull brown and going limp. The flower shuddered. Green fuzz sprouted on the petals. The nightbloom swayed and collapsed, sagging into a liquefying mess of vegetation and rotting fluid, revealing Runa, her right hand extended, her fingers covered with plant gore.

She stared at her fingers in disgust, shook her hand, and said, “Twenty-three minutes since full bloom.”

We had seventeen minutes to administer the antidote. I turned around and sprinted to the infirmary.



The family was back in the conference room. Everyone was in the exact same seats they had taken twenty-four hours ago, but nobody looked the same. We looked like we had gotten caught in an air raid and hadn’t quite made it to shelter in time.

Alessandro sat on my right and Konstantin, back in his Berezin persona, on my left. The fight with the Crystal Knight had come at a cost. Both Alessandro and I were cut up. Once the adrenaline wore off, the pain set in. I must’ve taken a hit to my back, because everything from the left shoulder blade down to my waist felt like one giant bruise. Alessandro must’ve gotten hurt as well, but he showed no signs of it.

Bern had bags under his eyes, and they weren’t clutches, they were totes. He was chugging a Red Bull and staring at his laptop. Next to him, Runa nursed an iced coffee, her expression grim. Halle, her sister, slumped in the chair next to her, with her face on the table. Past Halle, Ragnar had the pinched look and wide eyes of someone who was trying his absolute best to stay awake.

Arkan had hit us with a two-prong attack. It started with three armored vehicles pulling up to the house. Buller got out of the first one and generated his armor. We had expected Buller to show up sooner or later, and the plan always was that Arabella would deal with him. No matter how indestructible he was, there was still a human being in all that armor and after my sister was done venting her frustration, he wouldn’t pose a threat. Predictably, once he popped up on the security feed, Arabella ran out of the main house heading to the front gate.

Unfortunately, Arkan’s Prime summoner, Maya Krause, had opened two portals, one right above the main house and the other at the north gate, and dropped two nightblooms. The sentries at the north gate went down instantly and so did my sister and her strike support team.

Runa happened to be in her siblings’ casita. She heard the siren, accessed the security feed, saw Arabella asleep and Buller strolling in, told her siblings to stay put until the fight was over, and ran out there to fight. Halle and Ragnar obeyed her precisely, meaning the moment she killed the nightbloom, they raced out of the house to help detoxify everyone.

Venenata mages detoxified by either poisoning their patient with something that would kill the pathogen or by drawing the poison into themselves and metabolizing it. Even though we had cans of nightbloom antidote, time was a factor. The Etterson kids exhausted themselves trying to save everyone. Poor Ragnar looked like he wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing here.

To my right, Arabella watched Konstantin with silent hatred. I had brought her up to speed as soon as she woke up, and she zeroed in on Konstantin as the reason for Mom’s wound and everything that followed. That’s when Arabella was at her most dangerous, when she didn’t say anything and just seethed.

Konstantin and Alessandro had run to the north gate during the attack, missing Buller by moments. Alessandro torched the first nightbloom with his favorite tactical flamethrower. Konstantin changed shape into one of our guards and went after Krause, but she had fled as soon as she dropped those portals. Once the nightbloom was dead, Alessandro doubled back and ran into Buller and me.

Grandma Frida tapped her fingers on the table, watching Mom who sat across from her. Mom looked paler today, her bronze skin tinted with grey. Grandma Frida told me Mom wasn’t taking her pain medication. The attack had caught Grandma Frida in the motor pool, up to her elbow inside her latest mobile artillery project. The security protocol dictated that she and the three-person guard team protected the south gate, which was exactly what she did.

Leon sat by Grandma Frida. His arms, exposed by his T-shirt, sported hair-thin pale slashes that looked like old scars. Whatever attacked the FBI had gotten him after all. Dr. Patel told me he wasn’t sure they would go away or when. It was definitely making him sick, which was why he’d been asleep in his tower when the nightbloom seed landed on our patio. He’d tried shooting it and Buller, and none of it did any good, not even the minigun. Now he brooded, heartbroken because he felt useless.

The door swung open, and Cornelius entered, his expression grave. Matilda was next, her long dark hair gathered into a ponytail. She was carrying a fluffy Himalayan cat, whose full name was Go Mi Nam and who usually answered to “Kitty.” Patricia Taft was the last to enter, carrying a trash can. Some people had a stronger reaction to nightbloom than others.

Matilda walked over to Ragnar and deposited the cat on his lap. Ragnar blinked at her, startled.

“Comfort,” Matilda explained.