“There are so many sick and not enough hands to aid them.” Nana tied the final stitch in my skin and lowered her hand. “The curers could use your skills. Ena, please get Afton clean clothes and show her to the infirmary. She’ll need instructions, but she’s helped the curers before.”
After Ena and Afton were gone, I followed Nana to the contraption she was using when we arrived. Nana definitely wasn’t herself. It was as if a dark cloud hung over her.
Emily dropped onto one of the stools surrounding the work area.
“Why did you need me here?” I leaned my back against the counter, watching her. “I have to get back to the hideout in Ireland. Have you heard from Arik?”
“She has.” His voice, with that English accent of his, sounded foreign in contrast to the sterile room. His dark hair was messy, and his Sentinel uniform looked like he’d been in a war.
“Arik?”
Emily straightened her back and brushed her dark hair from her face. When we were hiding out in Branford, Conemar had put an evil witch spirit into Emily that had forced her to place a charm on Arik that made him like her. He’d broken up with me because of it. She was supposed to get information about Nick and me from Arik and feed it back to Conemar, but she had resisted and helped us during the battle on my front lawn. By her actions, it seemed she definitely liked him in a more-than-friends way.
Arik crossed the room. “You look quite a bit better, Gia.”
I look better? “How do you know how I looked?”
“I came to the house in Jamaica Plains to see you.” His eyes went to the bandage on my face. “You were completely out. Peaceful. Disturbing you would have been cruel. I would have stayed, but I was called away.” A sadness hung on his face, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
“Why are you here? What aren’t you telling me?” I pushed myself away from the counter and walked over to him. “You’re keeping something from me.”
He lowered his head. “While I was gone, our hideout was attacked.”
It felt like everything collapsed around me. “What? Where is everyone?”
Arik’s hesitation scared me.
“Was anyone hurt?” Tears burned the back of my eyes as I searched his eyes for answers.
He bit his bottom lip and lowered his head.
Oh no.
“Are they dead?”
Chapter Seven
The suspense was killing me. “Arik, please, what happened?”
Nana startled me when she came up to my side and wrapped her arm around my back. She was preparing me for what Arik said next.
“The night Veronique attacked you,” he said, “Lei and Jaran went missing. I searched, but there wasn’t any sign of them. It was as if they’d vanished. There was nothing for me to do, so I returned to the hideout.” He grabbed the back of his neck, his pause warning that he was about to hit me with more bad news.
“Deidre and Demos were unharmed,” he continued. “Cadby had escaped with Royston. They’re all in Asile.” He dropped his hand, his eyes finding Nana’s as if to ask permission to continue.
“And Carrig? Sinead?” I pressed.
“Those who attacked us took Carrig,” he finally said. “I’m not sure who they were. They wore cloaks, and it was night. Sinead must’ve gotten hurt during the fight. She’s in the infirmary here.”
After catching Emily’s gaze, I shifted my eyes to my messenger bag, indicating that she should watch over it.
She nodded slightly.
“Take me to Sinead.” I spotted a nearby door and marched over to it.
He followed me. “Gia, you need to let her rest.”
“I have to see her.” I opened the first door I came to. It was a supply closet. “Arik, please.”
“All right,” he said. “Follow me.”
I shut the closet door. If she died, or if they killed Carrig, I wasn’t sure I could survive the blow of losing them.
Arik opened a door in the back and held it for me to pass. I had expected a small room, but instead it was an enormous area with three galleries surrounding the main floor. There were about twenty rows of beds filled with patients on the first floor and several more on the balconies above. There had to be more than a hundred Fey and other Mystiks in them.
“What’s wrong with them?” I slowed my steps, glancing from one bed to the next, searching for Sinead.
Arik put on a surgical mask and handed me one. “Here. Don’t touch anything. It’s a disease that’s spreading through the Mystik world.”
I took it from him and secured it over my mouth and nose. “Where is Sinead?”
“Third floor. Isolated from those with the illness.”
I slid a glance at him. His worried face scared me. The fear in his beautiful brown eyes mirrored my own.
“She’s that bad?”
“She’s in a faery sleep,” he said, darting looks at me. “She’ll be all right. I’m worried about Carrig. And, of course, not knowing Lei’s or Jaran’s whereabouts is maddening. There is all manner of evil out there. The human news channels are full of reports. Attacks on humans. Creatures roaming their streets. We must end it.”
His words strangled the hope out of me. I couldn’t bear it if something horrible had happened to Carrig, to Lei, to Jaran.
“Are you all right?” Arik’s voice seemed like it was miles away.
“I’m fine. Where’s Sinead?”
He nodded in the direction of the main row. “That way.”
I kept pace with Arik down the aisle, my eyes roaming over the row of beds.
The faces of the sick struck me as I passed each one. A faery with sores around her mouth, blanket pulled up to her chin, stared at the towering ceiling. A bird person, breathing heavily, missing feathers to the point that he was balding, mumbled what sounded like a prayer to himself. A curer pulled a sheet over the face of a Laniar. I only caught a glimpse of him, but blood from his sores had streaked his chin, and his dark eyes were glazed over, lifeless.
Each face took a bite out of my soul. The linen mask sucked in and out with my stuttering breath. I staggered alongside Arik, walking on numb legs.
Someone had to do something to save them all.
Down the row, Afton sat on a stool beside one of the beds. She blocked the face of the child under the covers. I detoured down the row toward her.
The sound of Arik’s boots hitting the floor followed me. “Where are you going?”
“Afton?” I approached her.
She twisted on the stool to look at me. A linen mask covered her nose and mouth, surgical gloves were on her hands, and her hair was pulled back in rows of braids. Just over her shoulder, I could see the boy’s face.
Dag.
I stumbled back, and my hand flew to my mouth.
Afton shot up to her feet, blocking the boy’s view of me. “Don’t frighten him,” she whispered.
“Will he be okay?” I whispered back.
She didn’t answer—the tears welling in her eyes told me it all. He might not make it.
I sucked in my emotions and forced a smile behind my mask before going over to the bed. A sore had formed at the corner of his mouth. His almost-black hair stuck to his sweaty forehead. I reached out to brush it away, but Afton caught my hand with her gloved one.
“Don’t touch him,” she said. “You could catch it.”
I dropped my hands and leaned over him. “Hello, Dag,” I said.
His eyes fluttered open.