The Scofflaw Magician (The Artifactor Book 3) (28 page)

There was a
flash of magic so strong that it felt like a comet had just blazed through Big.
She knew the feeling of that magic well. Aran had just unleashed one amazing
attack. It hit squarely, too, judging from the sound of agony that screeched
into the air. Something meaty hit the wall hard and then there was another
thunk
as it slid to the ground.

The rocks
around her melted away—literally melted and shifted like liquid metal, flowing
away from her body. It lifted a lot of the pressure off her joints which made
things better and worse all at once.

Aran skidded to
a stop next to her on his knees, hands hovering over her without touching, as
if he didn’t know where he could. “Sevana.”

“Neat trick,”
she gasped out. Ouch, seriously, if breathing hurt, then trying to speak was
agony. She forged forward regardless, eyes focusing and un-focusing in turn.
“Did you get him?”

“He’s dead,
he’s not getting up again, shhh. Stop talking, it hurts to talk, so don’t
talk.”

She didn’t need
him to tell her that. Still… “Baby.”

“I hear him,
he’s whining on the other side of the rock about not being able to get through,
but he’s fine. We’re all fine. Shhh.”

Master was
right behind Aran, still standing, weaving a spell into the air so that glowing
lines came down and softly enveloped her from head to toe. Grimly, he finished
the spell before instructing, “Aran, go ahead of us and clear the path. We need
to get her into her bed before I have any chance of healing her.”

The Fae didn’t
pause before jumping to his feet and going ahead, destroying every trap as he
went.

Master’s eyes
were drawn with worry but he gave her a game smile. “Hold on, sweetling. We’ll
heal you.”

Sevana knew a
lie when she heard one. There were things wrong inside of her, terribly wrong,
and even with all of the magic in the world they wouldn’t be able to repair the
damage her body sustained quickly enough. She had minutes left on life, they
needed hours to do all of the spell work, and even though she was in so much
pain, her mind could do the math well enough.

She wouldn’t
survive this fight.

“Master—” she
started, wanting to give him her final words. Not that she had any doubts that
he wouldn’t take care of things after she was dead, but there were a few
messages she’d like to leave behind.

“Shh, save your
strength, sweetling.” Master lifted his wand, drawing the levitation spell into
place so that she hovered in the air.

Just that
movement, as gentle as it was, was too much for her body to handle. The pain
overloaded her nerves and the world went black.

What followed
next was strangely surreal, almost dreamlike, as Sevana floated in and out of
consciousness. She was aware that something soft and familiar was under her, so
they must have gotten her to her bed, and Aran and Master and Morgan were all
having a heated argument over her even as her clothes were cut away and healing
charms were placed on her body.

“—can’t do
that,” Master said vehemently. “The consequences are—”

“So it’s better
that she dies?” Aran snarled back, his tone black with rage. Wow, she hadn’t
known that her gentle Fae companion could
get
that angry.

“I’m with Aran
on this one, Master,” Morgan put in. “Not that it won’t cause complications
later, but at least she’ll be alive to complain about those complications.”

What in mercy’s
name were they talking about, anyway? She faded out before she could try to
force herself to ask. Thinking was hard, just listening was hard, and she
couldn’t seem to do it for more than a few seconds before her mind was pulled
back into blackness.

The next time
she came more awake, it was like clawing her way through layers and layers of
cotton stifling her. But she forced her way through and found that this time,
being awake didn’t hurt as much. That internal injury she had felt before
didn’t seem as bad, and while her knee and arms were still bound, the pain was
nothing more than a dull throb. Heavens, what had Master and Aran done, that
she was still alive and half-healed like this?

Whatever magic
they’d used encouraged her to sleep, and she fell back into dreams before she
could follow that thought through. This happened several times, almost like a
routine, and then one day she properly woke up. Sevana opened her eyes with the
feeling that she had been sleeping a very long time, days at least. She was
propped up on her side, pillows in front of and behind her, with another pillow
supporting up her bad knee. It was a comfortable position, but just the fact
that she wasn’t on her back told her that she had been asleep so long that
they’d been forced to rotate her to avoid bed sores. Just how long…?

She looked down
at the foot of the bed and found that Baby was lounging comfortably, his head
on her footboard. Feeling her eyes on him, he looked up, tail flicking against
the mattress in happiness.

“Hey, you,” she
whispered. After so long of not using her voice, it was rusty, and she had to
swallow again to get it to work. “You healed up already?”

Baby gave her a
satisfied purr.

Well, that was
good. Master or Aran must have seen to him. “How long have I been asleep? Who
else is here?”

With a graceful
heave, he got to his feet, stretched forward and back, getting the blood
flowing, and then hopped to the ground. Sevana watched him leave the room,
knowing full well that he was fetching someone that could answer her questions.
Silly cat. Had he been with her this whole time?

Come to think
of it…she maneuvered just enough to get an eyeball over the bed and to the
floor. Grydon was sitting partially up, looking at her with a wagging tail and
a tongue lolling out one side of his mouth. “Have you been here the whole time
too?”

The wolf gave
her a speaking look:
Crazy human, where else would I be?
That kind of
look.

She felt her
heart warm.

Her door
clicked open and Aran’s head popped into her room. “Are you properly awake
now?”

“I think I am?”
she responded, still feeling a little muddled. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two weeks.”

TWO WEEKS?! No,
wait, that recovery time wasn’t unexpected considering how badly she had been
hurt. The better question was: “Why am I alive?”

He pushed the
doorway all the way open and propped himself just inside, using her door frame
as a backrest. “Ah, that. Well, you know that you were too badly injured for
human magic to save you?”

“Mercy yes,”
she responded in exasperation, “that’s why I’m surprised to find myself breathing.
So? How did you manage this?”

Aran rubbed at
his mouth, hiding half of his face from her, studying her for a long second
before he finally said, “I put some of my blood into you.”

All thought
stopped. Sevana’s eyes bugged out of her head, jaw dropping hard enough to go
right through her bedframe and hit the floor. “You…what? I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me.
I put some of my blood into you. The regenerative powers of Fae blood is
legendary, you know that. It was the only way to give you the power you needed
for your own body to cope long enough to heal. As a nice side benefit, you’ll
also heal much faster.”

“Nice side
benefit, he says,” she repeated faintly. Her mind was awhirl with everything
she had learned about Fae blood. He’d put that directly into her? Wasn’t that
supposed to be a really bad thing to do to an adult magician, even one with as
little magical power as she possessed? “And, ah, what other benefits are there
going to be?”

“Well, you’ll
live longer than other humans. How much longer we’re not sure,” Aran admitted
frankly. “We’ve never done this in living memory, so all we have to go off of
is lore, and that’s not really accurate or rich on details.”

It hadn’t been
done in a Fae’s memory. Yes, that wasn’t unnerving or anything. “And?”

“Your senses
should be a little heightened, and of course you’ll forever heal faster,
but…other than that we’re not sure,” Aran confessed. “On the bright side, one
of our Mothers will stay with you for a week or so now that you’re awake and
we’ll be able to get more answers then.”

Sevana stared
at him suspiciously. “Why did I hear a ‘hopefully’ in that?”

Aran’s mouth
quirked. “Hopefully. Like I said, this hasn’t happened within our memory, so
we’re not sure.” He looked away, toward the ground. “I’m sorry. I know I should
have done this sort of thing with your permission but it was literally between
your life and being inconvenienced for the next three or so hundred years, so—”

She was going
to ignore that three or so hundred years part. Just for the sake of her mental
health. “No, you made the right decision. If I’d been awake and aware enough to
follow the conversation, I would have had you do it.”

He heaved out a
breath of relief. “Sevana, it’s…” He stopped himself short, shaking his head
slightly as if he telling himself that now was not the time. There was a look
in his eyes she couldn’t decipher, a mixture of emotions playing over his face
that she couldn’t quite read, but he said nothing more than, “I’m glad. Your
master was not at all happy with the idea. In fact, I had to wait until he left
the room before doing it, as he was dead set on stopping me.”

Oh? She had to
wonder why. Did Master know something they didn’t? Surely not—what were the
odds that he would know something that the Fae did not? Sevana made a mental
note to investigate that later. For now, she had more pressing issues. “Am I
healed enough to bathe? Get up?”

“I think so.
Hold on.” Aran ducked back out again, almost displacing air he moved so
quickly.

Sevana watched
him go in puzzlement. He had acted slightly uncomfortable being in her room. In
fact, it was more like he never entered the room properly, just hovered in the
doorway. Now why was that? Did Fae have notions of propriety like humans did?
It was another question she would have to ask later.

To her
surprise, it was Ailana, Sky’s mother, that came into her room next. She looked
exactly the same as their first meeting, with her hair in elaborate braids
around her head, ethereal and beautiful, moving as if she were the definition
of grace itself. The one thing that had changed was that she was not wearing
her usual flowing clothes but in a more sensible shirt, skirt, and apron. Her
face lit up in a blinding smile when their eyes connected.

“You seem clear
headed now.”

“I am,” Sevana
agreed. “Or at least, I think I am. Ailana, what are you doing here?”

“You needed a
woman to take care of you and when I heard what had happened, of course I
instantly came. Do not worry about Rudhon, his father has him.”

Rudhon? Oh,
right, Sky. She never could seem to remember to call him by his new Fae name.

Ailana was all
business, coming straight to her and helping her to slowly sit up, one arm
around her shoulders as a support. “Now, slowly, and if there’s any pain we
stop.”

There was a
twinge here and there but it was more stiffness than pain. Sevana got all the
way upright with her legs dangling off the bed without even a wince. “I’m good.
Bath?”

“Aran is
drawing one for you now. While you are bathing, I’ll fix you some thick broth.”

Sevana nodded
in understanding. After two weeks of not eating, her body wouldn’t know what to
do with food, and it would make her sick to eat something solid.

With Ailana’s
capable help, she went and took a nice bath, scrubbing what felt like two
layers of skin off. Laying about in bed for two weeks, after being crushed
under several pounds of rock, left a girl feeling a little grimy. As she
bathed, she asked Big, “Are you alright?”

Am
, the
mountain assured her. It strangely sounded like he was purring in contentment.

He had been hit
with several blasting spells and only after two weeks, he was fine again? That
didn’t sound right. Confused, she pressed, “All the damage is gone now?”

Is. Fae fix.

Oh-ho. So the
Fae had been cleaning up the aftermath while she slept? Well, that was good
then; she had less work ahead of her than she’d been dreading. It was good they’d
fixed Big first as he had been definitely hurting. Hopefully Master had gone
through and disabled all the traps before they’d come in to help. Also
hopefully someone had dealt with that evil magician…Sevana’s thoughts ground to
a stop.

Right. The
magician was dead. Aran had killed him.

She sat back
and let that soak in for a moment. The magician that had chased her down with
such cruel indifference was dead. Sevana had no doubt that Aran’s hand had been
forced. She’d hurt that man seriously three times and it had barely slowed him
down. Even a Fae would be hard pressed with an opponent like that. To herself,
she could admit that she was relieved that something so evil was safely dead.
He’d caused enough damage as it was.

Still, the
thought that someone had been killed in her mountain was a little disturbing.
Hopefully someone would be able to make sure that the man didn’t become an
edimmu later. She did
not
want a vengeful ghost wandering through Big.

Stepping out,
she toweled off and slipped into a loose, wrap around gown that Ailana must
have brought with her. Sevana had to admit it was easier to get into than her
usual pants and shirt. It was certainly a welcome thing as just standing up and
putting this on took far too much energy.

Ailana stepped
in to do her hair, armed with a brush. Sevana sat where she was pointed to and
gratefully let someone else do something with her head. Just washing her hair
had worn her arms out. As Ailana combed through it, detangling, Sevana decided
to get some answers. “What happened to that man’s corpse?”

“We burned it
clean and buried the ashes. Aran and I held a short memorial service for him so
that his spirit does not wander.”

Sevana puffed
out a breath of relief. “Good to hear. Do we know his actual identity now?”

“Your master
said he was able to learn about him through his workshop. Apparently there is a
story about him among your fellow magicians?” Ailana paused and looked to
Sevana’s face for confirmation. “About a young prodigy that tampered with his
magical core and paid dearly for it. I did not see him living, of course, so I
do not know what his core looked like. But his body was very, very strange.
Deranged, is how I would describe it.”

So, Master had
been right, that was who they had been fighting. How eerie. Well, if Sevana
ever turned evil, at least they would know how she would turn out.

“There,” Ailana
said in satisfaction. “It is a simple braid, but your head is likely heavy, so
I did not do anything elaborate.”

Bless her for
her common sense. Sevana stood carefully, like a young colt on wobbly knees,
and made for the door. “I’ve not been hearing anyone else?”

“They’re all
scattered, fixing the rest of the damage that man did, or spreading the news of
what happened.” Ailana sidled in and gave her silent support as they made for
the kitchen. Casually, she tacked on, “We were able to retrace that man’s steps
and found his workroom.”

Sevana stumbled
over her own feet. “What?!”

“Your master
was quite excited. He headed over there yesterday. I informed him you were
back, and he said he was coming directly here. I expect him this evening.”

She and Master
would have a long talk about going into an evil magician’s workroom without
proper backup. The Fae did not count. They didn’t understand human magic well
enough to know when to dodge. “How did you contact him?”