“Stop!”
The wraith boy froze in a half lurch, waiting for my permission to move again. The guards hesitated.
I fought to steady myself, grabbing my gown into bunches. “He thought I was in danger. Focus on Tobiah. He needs help.”
“She’s right.” James shouted orders, and guards moved in to assist, giving the statue-still wraith boy a wide berth.
Carefully, they pushed the limp prince into a sitting position. Blood saturated his jacket and shirt as they peeled off his clothes and tossed them aside. Blood-soaked wool hit the stone with a splat.
The crossbow tip protruded from his back, slick and shining with blood. A hooked barb made the bolt impossible to remove without causing more damage.
If he was even still alive.
“Knife!” shouted a guard. “Cut off the tip.”
The screaming below had softened, now that the assassin was gone and guards had emerged to control the crowd. The roofs across the courtyard were filled with soldiers hunting for the shooter.
One of the men lowered his knife to begin cutting the shaft just below the barb, but his hand shook with nerves. The life of his future king rested in those trembling fingers.
Breathlessly, I leaned forward and batted him aside. “Wake up,” I said, touching the bolt. The magic made my thoughts fuzz, but I hardly noticed. “Do this carefully and gently: break just below the tip and remove yourself from the prince. Leave no pieces inside him. Cause no additional harm.”
“Is she using magic?” someone whispered. Soldiers drew back, as if being too close to me would contaminate them, but they held their prince as the crossbow bolt followed my instructions.
The wood snapped and the tip clanked against the floor. One of the men dropped a cloth over it and snatched it up, as though containing a wild animal.
Slowly, the shaft pulled itself from the wound; whatever sound it made was covered by the gasping of soldiers nearby, and the noise of people being corralled in the courtyard below.
“Flasher,” someone muttered. “It’s true.”
In my peripheral vision, I caught the wraith boy’s rapt attention, his eyes unnaturally wide as he watched the crossbow bolt drop onto the prince’s lap. Tobiah’s hands rested limply on the stone floor, drenched in his own blood.
Please. Please.
As soon as the bolt was out, men pressed bandages to the wound, and I reached around to tap the offending object. “Go to sleep.”
It was inanimate again.
“Now,” said James. “Get His Highness into his quarters. Send for a physician. Have the entire city searched.” He turned to me. “Was that Patrick Lien?”
My stomach knotted. Patrick had always intended to be the liberator of Aecor, our conquered homeland. But while we had the same goals, his methods made him the enemy now. “Yes. Trying again, after he failed the other night.”
James passed a hand over his stomach, the ghosts of pain and confusion flickering across his face. “All right. I’ll need a description. A drawing, if you can manage.”
Around us, guards constructed a stretcher to transport Tobiah. This didn’t feel real.
“I can.” My head buzzed with magic and horror, but there was so much to do. “I can send him to search for Patrick.” I nodded toward the wraith boy, still caught in that half lurch. “You can stand now,” I told him.
He shot me a quizzical look as he straightened and assumed normal proportions. He was blindingly white, still wearing Tobiah’s Indigo Order jacket from the night of the Inundation, though the cloth was torn and dirty.
James glanced from me to the wraith boy. “He’s under your control?”
“He is.” Saints, I hoped he was.
The captain gave a curt nod. “Tobiah trusts you. I do, too. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to send him into the city.”
The wraith boy, perhaps sensing my reluctant agreement, grew smaller, more placid. His indigo jacket hung down to his knees as he lowered his eyes.
My blood-soaked gown dragged heavily as I stepped toward James, keeping my voice low. “There’s no way Tobiah can survive that wound.”
Neither of us said what we both must have been thinking: James had survived an almost identical injury.
He kept his voice soft. “What do you propose?”
It felt like betrayal, giving up someone else’s secret, but he would understand. He would be protected. “I have a friend who can heal.”
James’s eyebrows shot up. “Magically?”
I nodded.
The captain shoved his fingers through his hair, leaving streaks of Tobiah’s blood. “The other day, did you bring your friend to me?”
“No.”
He pressed his mouth into a line. “What are the chances of us both mysteriously healing?”
“Are you willing to take the risk?”
“Definitely not,” he said. “Where is your friend? I’ll have him sent for immediately.”