several more times, but
I had no idea what I was looking at. I’d have to move more of my body to look,
but that would be difficult because my entire body throbbed, as if I’d been
taken to a very great height and dropped over and over again, which, now that I
thought about it, I guessed I had been.
I pulled my head back just enough
and realized with amusement that I’d been looking at a single blade of grass. I
was in the exact same curled up position I’d been in when Keller laid me down.
Even in sleep I hadn’t had the energy to toss and turn.
Keller.
I turned my head to look, feeling
tiny pinpricks of pain as my muscles protested, but the warm body sleeping next
to me was of the werewolf variety. Lisabelle was on her other side, but I
couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or merely keeping us company.
Carefully, so as not to disturb Sip,
I rolled onto my back and looked up at the protective canopy of the Power of
Five.
It was like someone had painted a
shiny rainbow overhead. The silver was pulsing and strong. Keller must have
reinforced it once he got there.
I saw him standing over at the
edge of our protective Power talking quietly to Zervos, so I just lay there for
a while and watched the way his hands gestured as he talked, the serious tilt
of his head or the way his wings furled and unfurled a little depending on the
point he was making. I fell asleep again watching him, warmer now.
The next time I woke up it was to
yelling. The daylight had given way to night, and there was just a small fire
in the center of our little group keeping us warm.
Others were slowly starting to
wake up and I was also starting to understand the argument.
Apparently representatives from
Golden Falls had arrived and Zervos was furious.
“What’s he so angry about?” Sip
asked Lisabelle, who was sitting cross-legged next to her.
Sip had changed back into human
form at some point while I slept. She looked tired, but she was otherwise
unharmed. It felt like another rock was removed from my chest, and I breathed a
little easier.
Lisabelle looked grim.
“Dove’s dead,” she said quietly.
“I guess Zervos is angry despite the good relations we have with Golden Falls.”
Sip nodded sadly. “He saved my
life. The Demon of Knight was about to throw me off when Dove got there. He
stopped him, but he didn’t see the other demon. They cut off his head.”
I gasped, and Zervos’s head
turned a fraction before he continued to argue with whoever was beyond the
force field. Dimly I could see hints of splendid gold, but I couldn’t see where
it came from.
“That’s horrible,” said Lough. He
was sitting next to me, eating another dinner roll. “Did they find the body?”
“What was left of it,” said
Lisabelle. “That’s what they were saying before. Now they’re trying to get
Zervos to lower the shield.”
“He can’t do that,” Sip cried.
Lisabelle put her arm around Sip’s shoulders and comforted her. I’d never heard
Sip sound so terrified before.
“You’re right,” she said. “It’d
be much easier if one of the ones who enacted the force field would take it
down, but Zervos didn’t want to disturb any of you.”
“Do we trust whoever’s on the
other side of the shield?” Sip still sounded nervous.
Lisabelle shrugged. “We don’t
have a lot of other options.”
“We could contact Public,” said
Sip hopefully. “There’s still time to go back for the semester. We’ve only
missed one day of classes and I’m sure the professors wouldn’t hold it against
us. I’m sure Dacer wouldn’t.” She gave me a pleading look.
“I can’t believe we’re still
going to Golden Falls if Dove’s dead,” said Lough. Unfortunately, he’d
forgotten to keep his voice down, and that earned us a glare from Zervos. I
could barely see him in the darkness, and any good feelings I had had about him
joining us earlier evaporated into the cold January night.
Dove was dead.
We were alone at the mercy
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