Page 127 of The Demon's Spell

As we rounded the staircase toward the top, despair settled in my gut. The archway I was expecting to see wasn’t there. At the top of the landing was nothing but a flush wall. We may have escaped the collapsing forest, but we were still stuck in this stairwell.

Nadine stopped dead. “I thought I stabilized the spell.”

“It must’ve just been enough to reverse our screw-up, but not enough to stabilize it completely,” I theorized. “Come on, Nad. You need to sit down.”

She was trying to hide it, but I knew damn well when she wasn’t feeling well. She’d missed dialysis and hadn’t had a proper meal in days. Right now, she couldn’t hide a thing. I helped her up the last few steps and lowered her to the floor. I sat beside her, and she put her head in my lap. Our friends gathered around, but everyone remained silent. There wasn’t much more to say.

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said kindly. “I really hoped you’d make it. If those Fortune Fairies are as lucky as they say, perhaps it will grant you the luck for the doorway to open.”

The Fortune Fairy fluttered its wings from Nadine’s shoulder.

“You guys should sleep,” Cooper encouraged. “I’ll wake you if the doorway opens.”

It must’ve been mere moments before I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, my eyes fluttered open, and I had no idea how much time had passed. Nadine’s head was still in my lap. A dim witch light hovered overhead, and I looked around to see Grant and Miles sleeping, but Talia was gone.

I turned to look up at Cooper. “Where’s Talia?”

“I don’t think she’s feeling well,” he said. “She keeps doing downstairs. Stomachache, I think.”

That meant four of us were sick, and I wasn’t doing much better. We’d been saving the last of our food for Grant, and I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. Miles was having an arthritis flare-up he wouldn’t admit to, and though Grant had been regulating his blood sugar the best he could, I didn’t think it was going well.

“How long was I asleep?” I asked Cooper.

He shrugged. “Ten hours?”

That made it Sunday morning.

Nadine stirred, and my stomach knotted. “How are you doing?” I asked as I stroked her hair.

“Weak and nauseous,” she said in a strained voice. She was getting worse.

She tried to sit up, but I guided her back into my lap. She was too weak.

“You’re breathing heavily,” I pointed out. “It’s worse than you’re saying.”

She sighed. We’d agreed to open up to each other more and to let each other help. “I feel like every breath isn’t enough. Something’s off in my body—like my blood pressure isn’t quite right. My feet are sore, which means I’m retaining water. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can make you comfortable.” I gently laid her head on the ground, then knelt at her feet and stripped her shoes off. Her feet were really swollen, which worried me. I began massaging them, and Nadine closed her eyes like it felt good.

The stairs creaked, and I looked over to see Talia climbing the steps. She was carrying the Seer Wand, like she was afraid to let it out of her sight.

“Let me help,” she offered. She sat next to Nadine, then scooted over so that Nadine could lay her head in her lap. Nadine relaxed into her best friend, and the girls chatted to pass the time. Soon, Grant and Miles woke. Grant got to work checking his blood sugar immediately, then scarfed down a few bites of what we had left for food.

“When we get out of here, I’m getting a big, juicy burger,” Grant said.

“Steak for me,” Miles added. “On second thought, I think I’ll order a whole cow.”

“You guys need to eat something,” Grant insisted, shoving the last of the trail mix at us.

“We’re not eating,” I protested. “You need it more than the rest of us.”

“I’m not the only sick one here,” he pointed out. “And even then, you’re all going to starve if you don’t eat.”

Grant wouldn’t stop insisting, and he made us eat a few handfuls of trail mix. By the time we finished, it was almost gone. We made sure to save the last of it for him, though there were only a few bites left.

Hours passed. We were all too tired to say much of anything, but Cooper kept us entertained with stories.

I was certain we were going to die down here. As morbid as it was, I couldn’t help but think about our deaths. Grant would be the first to go, because his blood sugar would drop to deadly levels. Nadine would be next, because her kidneys couldn’t filter out the toxins in her body. The rest of us wouldn’t last much longer. We’d starve, like Cooper had. I wondered if anyone would stick around in the stairwell, or if we’d all go with our reapers…

---