The Culling Trials 3 (Shadowspell Academy #3)(41)

Someone poked their head in. Jared. The vampire’s eyes widened and then narrowed into a glare.

“Jared, get his father!” Mara said.

I went to my knees beside the cot and found Ethan’s hand with the one not seared to his wand. Wally went to her knees beside me. Pete and Orin were behind us, and we waited like that—a united crew—as Mara worked her magic on Ethan. The punctures in his side closed, the wounds on his face closed, and the pallor of his skin improved. But his chest didn’t lift and lower.

Mara stumbled back, breathing hard after maybe thirty seconds, sweat rolling from her face. “There is nothing more I can do. He was too deep into death for me to pull him back.” Her eyes opened wide with unshed tears, but she tipped her head at Ethan and then looked hard at me. What was she trying to tell me? “I’m sorry about your friend.”

Too deep into death. What did she mean by that? Now that we were out of the trial, my head was pounding once more, all the adrenaline that had kept the worst of it at bay had burned off.

I was shaking my head before she even finished. “No, that can’t be. He can’t die.”

But she was already walking away, pausing only to look back at me. The tent was empty except for the five of us. Five. I refused for it to be four.

I looked at Wally. “Tell me you can do something, Wally. She said too deep into death, that means he’s in your realm now. There has to be—”

Orin sucked in a breath. “Once death has taken—”

I waved my wand hand at him. “Too far into death is not dead. Am I right?”

Wally’s eyes were as wide as Mara’s had been. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do what you’re asking.”

“Try,” I whispered. “Please try.” I kept my hand on Ethan’s. Still warm, he was still warm. I had to believe that we could save him yet.

Wally put her hands on Ethan’s chest and bowed her head. The magic I’d seen around her in the graveyard spilled out of her body, pink and soft and gentle, and for a moment, I thought I saw a darkness around Ethan. Like his body was engulfed in shadows even though I knew for a fact that it wasn’t.

Noise erupted outside the tent—angry shouts, the wail of a woman, the bellow of a voice that likely belonged to the elder Helix. I understood that cry of grief and could easily guess who’d made it. Ethan’s mother.

“Hurry, Wally, hurry,” I said.

Pete slipped up beside Wally and put a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this.”

Orin put his hand on my shoulder, too, and the circle was complete, our crew linked together in a way I hadn’t thought possible. Wally blew out a breath and the magic she carried pushed the darkness clinging to Ethan back, lighting it up.

“It is not his time,” she said, and her voice radiated power that rippled outward, flapping the edges of the tent. Everyone outside went silent for a moment, then a hand pushed on the flap but didn’t make it in. They were trying to get in, but something held them back. I didn’t know if it was Wally’s power, or the presence of death.

A voice that was anything but human chimed back, answering Wally. “He is in my grasp. You cannot take him from me.”

Pete and Orin gave identical gasps. But Wally just shook her head, her hands clenching against Ethan’s chest, digging into his shirt. “But he is not fully with you, and so I command you to release your hold on him. You obey me. I rule you, Bani.” Wally’s Conkrite voice was in full effect and the power it radiated was anything but funny.

The darkness around Ethan surged, wisps wrapping around him, but Wally pushed it back again, her shoulders tightening, the pale pink light glowing hotter, brighter. “I will not be ignored. No longer!” There was a snap of power to her words, like a whip being cracked, and the shadows slid back from Ethan, slowly, and then faster until there was nothing left but Wally’s glowing pink power.

“Death is held at bay, for a minute or two at best,” Wally whispered, slumping, Pete catching her.

I leaned forward. “Ethan?”

His chest still didn’t rise.

Orin slapped Ethan’s chest. “CPR, we need to restart his heart.”

He started compressions, and I just stared at him in shock for a moment. Who the hell would think a vampire would know CPR? It hit me in a flash. A vampire who didn’t want to kill his human victims would need to have at least basic CPR and medical knowledge.

“You need to breathe for him.” Orin said. “Now, two breaths.”

I leaned over Ethan, pinching his nose, and breathed into his mouth, forcing his chest to rise and fall. Two puffs. Orin did another round of compressions. “Again, two more.”

I held my mouth to Ethan’s and closed my eyes, putting more than my own air into him—trying to give him my energy too, if that were even possible.

Orin pressed long pale fingers to Ethan’s neck. “There’s a pulse. Very weak. Breathe for him again. We keep breathing for him until he takes one on his own.”

I didn’t question Orin, just put my lips over Ethan’s and breathed into him.

One. Open your eyes, don’t give up!

Two. Come back, Wonder Bread. We aren’t done, you and I.

I pulled back a little, enough that I could look straight into Ethan’s face, watching for any sign that he was alive. Any sign at all.