There was nothing.
Nothing but the questions and inconsistencies that piled up the more I tried to ignore them.
It didn’t make any sense.
Sain’s story. His reaction. Thom’s injury.
He hadn’t even answered my question, and that haunted look seemed to have been burned into me.
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
What terrible mistake, Sain? What have you done?
I kept trying to push my doubts away, yet they kept coming back like the waves on the beach, faster and farther in every time. I had to trust him.
I had to.
After everything, I didn’t have any reason to doubt.
Still, something wasn’t adding up. That was what was hurting the most.
What hadn’t been said was almost louder than what had.
Eighteen
I sat on the dust covered floor, my hand wrapped around Thom’s as I tried to decipher the voices that came through the door, a task that was proving to be impossible thanks to the sound of the Vil?s that were still trying to get in.
Even though the attack was wearing down, the sound of screams coming farther apart and farther and farther away, the Vil?’s that clawed at the shutters still remained. Their claws pulled at the wooden barrier of the walls in a desperate attempt to get in.
I knew they couldn’t, but listening to it was increasing my agitation level, and I kind of wanted to open the window and rip their heads off.
“Wyn?” The weak voice drifted through the dark from behind me, and I jumped, fear tensing through my spine as I turned toward the sound, my skin heating in expectation of attack.
Ryland lay where I had accidentally dropped him, the dust of the floor spread around him in a fan. His body moved and twitched as he began to wake. He grunted and groaned my name again as he tried to pull himself out of the stupor I had placed him in, his mind muddled enough that he wasn’t a danger at that moment. I knew it would not last, however.
Thom’s hand fell from my hold with a thud as I slid across the floor, the sound of fabric against wood loud as I reached him just as the moans of confusion began to twist into the sounds of pain and fear.
My magic rushed into him with one touch, pressing into him as I moved right to his heart, to the battered organ that seemed to be the gateway for whatever Edmund was still doing to him. I already knew my shield would not be enough to fight whatever power he had been infected with, but I had to try. We had already discovered that noises too loud would only attract more of the little beasts, and Ryland could be as loud as they came.
The last thing we needed was a swarm of the rats right outside our window.
That was more of a beacon than I was interested in dealing with at the moment.
“Ryland,” I soothed, my voice calm as I leaned toward him, the pressure of my hand against his increasing in what I hoped would be comforting.
He reacted to it, his body calming beside mine until, like a silent snap, he curled into himself, his voice ripping out of him loud and angry, and I knew at once we were in trouble.
First comes panic then comes magical explosions. Then comes a missing wall and little winged rats ripping at your flesh.
It was like those cookie books, but with death. Well, and my rodents had wings.
“Ry,” I tried again. “It’s Wyn, Ry. I’m right here.”
“Nonononononono.” He ripped at his hair, writhed on the floor, and tried to pull away from me, but I held on like he was my life raft rather than the other way around.
Although I knew I needed to knock him out again, I almost felt bad for having to do so. This hell Edmund had plunged him into, this terrorized reality where he was always haunted and tormented. Where he couldn’t find the line of what he was and who controlled him. Where we always knocked him out because he was unmanageable.
This wasn’t a life.
“Ryland,” I tried again, careful to keep my voice low as I leaned closer to him. He didn’t so much as respond.
I needed a stronger shield. I needed to be able to block them out. It was what I had been trying to do; I just needed to increase the power.
“It’s okay, Ryland.” The words were more for me than to him, my magic flaring as I pushed it against his heart, doing my best to keep the fire magic restrained, to keep from burning him alive.
I might not be anywhere close to Joclyn’s ability, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying to help him.
My magic wrapped around his heart, shielding him from the inside out, smothering him in comfort. I knew at once it was working. I could tell by the way his body relaxed, the tension in his back falling away.
It might have even worked, too, if it hadn’t been for the laugh. The childish laugh that I recognized at once, that froze through me and tensed every muscle, broke my heart and threatened to do me in.
Not here.
Why here?
Rosaline.