“He’ll be enflamed with spell fire, and the ashes salted and taken away to barren land to be buried with the head of a snake, the fang of a jackal, the head of a crow.”
She looked at Lana. “You hurt her again.”
“Not enough. They’ll come back.”
“They’ll come back, but this time we don’t run.”
“No, we’re done with that. Go on.” She touched Fallon’s cheek. “People need to see you. I’ll help the medics, and your father will deal with that.” She looked down at Eric.
“Yeah, I will.”
When Fallon moved off, Lana turned into Simon. “Max died here, right here where Eric fell. Fallon’s sword sent him here, and you finished it. Right here, Simon. Max tried to stop him. I tried. You and Fallon did. It matters, I think, it was you and Fallon.”
“It’s done.” He kissed her. “Go help patch people up. I’m going to get a couple of guys to help me move him more into the open, and we’ll keep a guard on him until we can do what Fallon wants done with him.”
It relieved Fallon to see familiar faces as she moved across what had, for the second time, become a field of battle. She saw the wisdom in Fred and some of the other faeries recharging the earth where it had been struck and scorched, and people gathering up the ruined remains of the gazebo.
Some wept, and there should always be tears over blood, but most dealt with what needed to be done with a grim determination.
She stopped Hannah.
“Can you tell me how bad it is? Dead, wounded?”
“A lot of gashes and burns, and shock. Some serious injuries.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Starr’s one. She took a hard hit, but she’s fighting treatment. She panics if they touch her. I know Flynn’s trying, but he’s hurt, too. And—and Tonia.”
Fallon gripped Hannah’s arm, hard. “How bad?”
“Rachel says second-and third-degree burns, probably a concussion, whiplash. I’m not sure. Mom made her go to the clinic. She couldn’t make Duncan go, and he’s hurt, too.”
Fallon looked to where he sat, his arm around a woman who held Duncan’s dead friend. Who rocked, who keened.
“Denzel … her son … I loved him. We all loved him. And I heard Duncan tell Will to check on Carlee, and on Mina and her little boy. That Petra—oh God—that she said she’d killed Carlee and Mina. I have to go, they need me.”
“I’ll come to the clinic. I can help. I’ll be there.”
First she went to Duncan. He didn’t look at her, just held the grieving mother, kept his eyes on his friend’s face. But he jerked away when Fallon laid a hand on his wounded side.
“Leave it alone.”
“You’re more help uninjured.” Despite him, she pressed her hand against him, slid her power in. Searing, she thought, and deeper than she’d realized. She had to clamp her teeth on the shock of the burn, kept them clamped until it eased and she could breathe clear again.
“Rachel will want to have a look at you,” she said, and rose, began her walk to the clinic.
Scores injured, she saw as she went in. Some huddled in chairs with their wounds, others lay on gurneys. Some wept, some moaned, some just sat with eyes glazed in shock.
Her mother, hair pinned up, worked with other healers. She stopped by a girl she recognized as one of Tonia’s friends. April, a faerie, who shivered with shock under a blanket.
“It’s not bad. They said it’s not bad. Do you know where Barkly is? I was with Barkly.”
“I’ll find out. Look at me. April, see me.”
“It’s not bad.”
“It’ll be better.” Cuts, burns, shock, the system jolt of a lightning strike only feet away. She soothed it, closed the little gashes, healed the burns.
“My mom’s probably looking for me, worried. And Barkly.”
“Your mom’ll find you. Sleep now.”
Fallon sent her into a light, healing sleep, moved on.
She found Flynn in one of the exam rooms with Lupa at his feet. Flynn had blood on his face, on his shirt, raw burns on both hands. And still he pleaded with Starr.
“You have to let them help you. They can’t help you if they don’t touch you. You know these people, Starr.”
“I knew Petra.”
There was a wildness in her that was pain, Fallon knew, and delirium. Her body shook from the burns that covered her arms, her legs, and dripped with what Fallon scented as infection already setting in.
A graze on her face oozed blood.
“You know me.” Fallon closed the door behind her, stepped to the gurney. “I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. I thought you might have been the one who betrayed us.”
“I know. Don’t touch me.”
“I was wrong. I had you come to the meeting to see if things we spoke of, things we did, would be passed on. I set a trap for you, and I was wrong.”
“I’d never betray you.”
“I know. Forgive me. Show me forgiveness by letting me help you. I have need for the brave and the true. You’re both. Without help you’ll die, and I’ll lose a warrior and a light. Flynn will lose a friend and a sister. Look at me, Starr.”
“She’ll fight a trance,” Flynn told her.
“She won’t fight me. Do you see me?” she asked Starr. “I see you. You see the light in me. I see the light in you. Trust what you fought for. Trust me as I trust you.”
She took her deep. “Get my mother, or another powerful healer. Tell her the burns are infected. She’ll know what to bring. Where’s Rachel?”
“Surgery.”
“Get my mother if you can, and have someone tend to you.”
“After Starr. I’ll get your mother.”
She began, and the pain turned her legs to water. She had to stop and start again, stop and start. She had the power, Fallon thought, but her experience remained limited.
Pale, drenched in sweat, she looked over as her mother came in with a tray of magickal supplies.
“Too much,” Lana said sharply. “Ease back, right now.”
“I think she’s dying.”
“It won’t help you to die with her. Slowly, Fallon. Layer by layer.”
Lana set the tray down, glided hands, light as clouds, over Starr. “We have to let the poison out. We need the athame, the cup, the healing powder. Watch.”
She drew the knife Fallon gave her over a seeping burn, caught the drainage in the cup. Then another, and another.
“Salt it, pour it out, wash and purify the cup. Next, we heal slowly, layer by layer, use the healing powder, and do it all again, and again, until she’s cleared of infection.”
They worked for more than two hours, and most of it under Flynn’s watchful eye.
Finally Lana mopped her face, laid a hand on Starr’s forehead. “She’s cool again.”
“She won’t die?”
Lana turned to Flynn. “She should have died. Anyone without her iron will would have died. She’ll have scars, inside and out. We can only heal so much. But she’ll live, and she’ll need someone she trusts to coat the burns we couldn’t heal through with a balm I’ll give you. Twice a day. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, she’ll let me. She might let Fred. She’ll let you now,” he said to Fallon. “She ran straight into a fireball. It would’ve taken out at least six, but she ran straight into it.”
“Do you know how many dead, how many wounded?” Fallon asked him.
“Nine dead on the field, another two touch and go. Wounded? Fifty, sixty. It would’ve been worse if it hadn’t been for you, Duncan, Tonia. You,” he said to Lana, “and your man. It would’ve been worse if the recruits you brought in hadn’t come swarming to fight.”
Flynn looked over at Lana, smiled a little. “Your son rallied them. Colin. That’s the word anyway. I’ll stay with her until she wakes up.”
“She won’t wake till morning,” Lana told him, and he shrugged.
“I’ve got nothing else to do.”
Fallon left the clinic, walked back to the field. The faeries had done their work, greening the grass, healing the trees. She imagined the non-magickals would do theirs as well, rebuilding the gazebo, the playground.
Symbols, she thought. They would not stop building, surviving, fighting, living.
She walked to Eric’s body and the two guards. “I’ll deal with this now.”
“Your father and Will, they said we should help you with him.”