A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(16)
The boy led us back to the ruins of the castle, dodging over the piles of rubble and moss-covered stones. Entering what had been the castle’s outer wall, he uncovered a cellar door that led belowground. The boy pulled the door open with a loud creak and waved us ahead.
We were following an ax-wielding stranger underground, where the air smelled stale and damp, but all I cared about was Magnus’s racing pulse as I helped lower him inside, my cheek pressed against his neck. Carefully, Blackwood and I laid him onto the muddy ground.
Lit candles had been wedged into the rocky walls. Once the boy closed the door, the only natural light came from a crack in the rock ceiling. Blackwood had to duck to avoid hitting his head as I knelt beside Magnus to watch the boy at work.
The boy stripped Magnus’s coat off and ripped his shirt open, exposing his chest. I nearly turned away from the immodesty of it but checked myself. Magnus was dying, for God’s sake. I remained focused on his face.
“Who are you? How do you know what to do?” Blackwood’s voice echoed in the cavern.
The boy didn’t answer. Instead, he took a knife and cut into the wounds on Magnus’s arm. Clear liquid welled out of the bites. The boy took a deep breath, then sucked at the marks, spitting the poison onto the wall.
“Can you do that?” I asked, stricken with horror.
The boy pulled his cap off his head. Wild bright red curls tumbled down. With the addition of the hair, the boy’s entire appearance changed. His lips seemed fuller, the tilt of his eyes more feminine. This was a young woman, not a little boy. She looked at me; there was a hard knowledge in her gaze. “Aye. If you’d like, pass me that bag.” She nodded at a leather pouch by my side. “Then go above and keep watch. There’s precious little else you can do.”
The lilt of her voice sounded northern, Scottish perhaps. I passed her the bag while Magnus began to wail and claw at the air.
“No, get away. He might still be alive!” He spoke to invisible phantoms. Foam flecked the corners of his mouth. His whole body went rigid, and he began to seize violently.
“Magnus!” I tried to touch him, but the girl struck my hand.
“Go now!” she cried. Blackwood threw the door open, pulling me after him. I could only listen to Magnus’s delirious screams and sobs.
Blackwood and I sat at the edge of the cavern, our staves in hand. My knees would not stop shaking, and I looked to the sky above. The light had purpled, and the sun had reached the lip of the horizon. My teeth began chattering, which had nothing to do with the night’s oncoming chill.
“He’ll be fine.” Blackwood sat on the balls of his feet, ready to spring into action. “Magnus has far too much absurd luck for it all to run out now.” But he sounded unsure. Blackwood stood and walked forward, cautiously checking the open area around us. I could feel it, though. The Familiars had moved on. The air didn’t seem so very still and awful now.
Slowly, Magnus’s screams began to die down. Please, God. Let that be a good sign.
“The Familiar should have bit me, not him.” I rolled Porridge in my hands, tracing my fingers along the carved ivy leaves that decorated the stave’s length. The faintest trace of blue light shimmered in one of the tendrils.
“Don’t start thinking like that.” Blackwood sat beside me again.
We listened to the roar of the waves far below us. I dug the toe of my boot into the soft earth, drawing arrows and circles. There was no hell quite like waiting.
“I know you wish we hadn’t come here,” I said at last, unable to bear the silence.
Blackwood shrugged, a strangely casual motion for him. “We weren’t any use in London. We might find something here, at least.”
My thoughts turned to what Whitechurch had said, about how I couldn’t stand to feel useless. Blackwood definitely had a similar drive. What else would compel him to rise and train every morning in his obsidian room before the sky was light? I gazed at the carvings on my stave, and then looked at his. Identical in every way. “Sometimes I think we’re quite the same.”
“Yes.” The faintest hint of a smile graced his lips. He took Porridge from me for one moment and traced his fingers along some of the carvings. The hair along my neck stood on end. It felt oddly intimate.
“All right. Come in,” the girl called at last.
We crawled back inside to find Magnus lying with a jacket rolled up beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. His arm was bandaged, and he appeared to be resting. His chest, now covered, rose and fell evenly with his breathing. He smiled weakly when Blackwood and I entered.
“Strangest doctor I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, eyeing the red-haired girl. She poured water over some crude-looking utensils to clean them and looked at Magnus pointedly. “And by far the most skilled,” he added.
“Best not forget that.” But she grinned, slipped her instruments into a satchel, and hoisted it over her shoulder. “Bit close in here. Need some air.” Without another word, she swept past us and out the door.
“I’ll thank her.” Blackwood left. I’d the feeling he also wanted to get a better sense of our mysterious savior.
Even with the burning candles, it was growing horribly dim in the cavern. Night was coming on fast; the glimpse of sky in the crack above had darkened to a deep violet. I fashioned a flame into a burning orb and suspended it overhead.