Page 37 of A Heart of Bluestone

I land on my knees, hard.

The pitch of my shout disturbs the pixies nested in the lampshade that rattles with my fall. Their hisses are pin-needle shrieks as a swarm of them spears down on me.

I care nothing about the pixies. Mere annoying pests swarming my head.

I fall onto my side with a groan, then slump.

All night.

All night I was stuck like that. Most of the following day, too, I’m sure.

The spell contained me for too long. My feet feel like nothing more than stretched, pulled and twisted taffy. The ache in my calves is a shredding feeling, and my spine is searing hot. Through that, I can hardly spare much mind to the fact that I have definitely wet myself.

The gross sensation of damp shorts sticks to my skin.

For a while, I just lie here.

Can’t do much more than that. I don’t think my legs could hold me up if I tried to stand.

I stay, slumped, my temple rested on the edge of the plush rug. I watch the pixies dive into the fine woollen threads.Abandoning their attack of me, they disperse into the rug and disappear—in search of food, bugs and crumbs.

I could eat.

That’s what has me guessing that the night, and also a chunk of the day, has gone. How deep the ache in my stirring stomach goes. Acidic.

How lucky I am isn’t lost on me.

Most of the students, if not all, were in bed for the night I was stuck here at the tapestry. And being the cigar room with smaller water closets than the bathrooms off the grand parlour, only two juniors stumbled upon me.

Two eighteen-year-olds I know from aristos circles.

They didn’t harm me. But they knew better than to do anything about it. They knew better than to do what I did.

Interfere.

They got their asses out of this room, and I think they are smart for it, even if I was wishing that they would get help.

No help came.

No teachers came.

Not even Courtney.

If she’s looking for me at all, she’ll be looking in broom cupboards, probably. That’s where Dray sometimes locks me away. The longest was two days and a quarter. A groundskeeper found me, took me to the infirmary. The witchdoctor had to put me on a fluid IV, I was so dehydrated.

Sometimes I think about it. Wonder if Dray would have come back for me, let me out once he realised that I was at the three-day mark without food or water, and no one had found me.

I wonder how he sleeps knowing he’s trapped me somewhere.

Likely, he sleeps as well as a wolf after a meal.

My face twists before I summon the courage to roll onto my back. I manage with as little as a gasp unribboning from between my chapped lips.

My mind flickers back to the witchdoctor. Hope she has a bed ready for a new patient. Because the infirmary is the first place I’ll drag myself once I can summon the energy.

But right now…

I just need to rest.

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