“Well, the plague must’ve spread,” Sophie said, “because the whole place was overrun with it.”
“That doesn’t make sense either. All our reports say the plague moves slowly. Wildwood took weeks to get overwhelmed.” Elwin switched to a red orb of light. “And he has injuries that aren’t plague related. Like these here?” He held up the gnome’s limp hand, pointing to the blisters on the palms. “These are burns.”
“Maybe he lit a fire to keep the plague away,” Fitz suggested.
Elwin scratched his chin and flashed a few more colored orbs. “Well, I can treat the burns and get some fluids in him. But all the remedies are in Lumenaria.”
“Remedies?” Sophie asked.
“Not a cure,” he said. “But they slow the symptoms, and make it a bit more bearable. It’s a good thing you guys found him—he’s progressing faster than I’m used to seeing.”
Sophie sank onto the edge of one of the beds, more exhausted than ever. Maybe it was the adrenaline fading, but she had a feeling it had more to do with how much she’d been hoping Elwin could fix everything.
“Hey now,” Elwin said. “Don’t go looking so defeated. Bullhorn’s staying quiet—see?”
He pointed to the bed in the corner, where the beady-eyed banshee was resting. Banshees could sense when someone was dying, and squawked his heads off around anyone in mortal danger. So if Bullhorn wasn’t bothering to get up, the gnome still had some time left. But how much time?
“I’d better hail Magnate Leto and let him know what’s going on,” Elwin said. “You’re both going to need to shower and change uniforms—and you’re both getting a full checkup.”
“What about me?” Jensi asked. “I need a new uniform too.”
“And a checkup,” Elwin agreed. “But first I need to take care of the fugitives.”
Elwin said it with a smile, but the word still turned Sophie’s stomach.
Jensi tugged on his cape, showing Sophie the blackened edges. “This reminds me of the first time we met—remember? I walked you to your elementalism session—and I warned you not to get zapped?”
Sophie smiled. “I remember.”
Jensi was one of the first kids who reached out to her at Foxfire.
“So how’s it been around here?” she asked.
Jensi looked away, his words slower than normal as he said. “Not the same.”
Magnate Leto arrived then and put the Healing Center on lockdown. After that, there was a lot of showering and changing, and drinking ten billion elixirs. Sophie was stunned that Elwin could find signs of everything she’d been through, from the healed burns of her Dividing to the light poisoning Della had treated after they’d gone to see Gethen. But the weirdest part was putting on a Foxfire uniform again. Magnate Leto had brought her a green Level Four uniform, and Sophie kept staring at her reflection, wondering if she’d ever make it back to Foxfire to wear one for real. She suspected Fitz was thinking the same thing as he fidgeted with the cape of his white Level Six uniform.
“Are you going to tell the Council we brought the gnome here today?” Fitz asked.
“Of course,” Magnate Leto said. “They should know who the true heroes were.”
Fitz smiled at that—and Sophie tried to do the same. But it was hard to feel heroic every time she looked at the gnome. Elwin had moved him to a clear quarantine bubble, and his skin looked less pale—and his sleep looked more restful—but he was clearly very, very sick.
“You kids should head back,” Magnate Leto said. “Assuming Elwin’s given the all clear, of course.”
“Yep, they’re totally clean,” Elwin said. “Though I hate to see them go.”
“Me too,” Jensi agreed. “Will you tell Biana I said hi—and Dex and Keefe?”
Sophie nodded, her voice too thick to work.
“Don’t worry,” Magnate Leto said. “I suspect this won’t be the last time we see you standing among these halls.
Sophie stared out the window at the expansive Foxfire grounds and let herself hope he was right. But as she took Fitz’s hand and prepared to leap to the Crooked Forest, she realized getting back into Foxfire wasn’t their biggest problem.
After everything they’d done, and all the rules they’d broken, there was a very good chance they’d gotten themselves expelled from Exillium.
FORTY-EIGHT
SOPHIE HADN’T KNOWN what to expect when she and Fitz arrived in the Crooked Forest, but she’d assumed lecturing and freaking out would play a major role.
Instead, her friends greeted them with the tacklehug to end all tacklehugs, and when they finally let them breathe—and were done pestering them for every detail about their time at Foxfire—she noticed Calla watching from her perch on one of the curved trunks.
“We’re safe,” Sophie promised. “Elwin quarantined us before we left.”
“I can tell,” Calla said. “I just . . . don’t know how to thank you. The risk you both took . . .”