Page 122 of Gift from the Wing

“Get blood? Like they put it in you?” I ask with a disgusted look on my face.

“Yeah. My mommy and daddy said it would make me feel better.”

“You’re sick?”

“I guess so.” She sighs sadly before carrying on. “At least I can get sick. Then I can’t get better. I thought I was better because Dr. B told my mommy I could come to school now and play with other girls, but I threw up at recess a few minutes ago and now she’s coming to get me.”

“So you’ll have to get blood put in you again?” I ask, completely fascinated.

“Maybe. I got ice cream afterwards last time,” she says with a small smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

“Maybe that’s why my father takes my blood. So I can help you feel better,” I say happily.

“Willow.” My father’s voice barks from the doorway, and I straighten in my seat as cold fear slithers across my body.

His frown smooths into an easy smile as Mrs. Smith comes to stand beside him with her arms crossed over her chest. I shrink in on myself as they both glare at me and I know I’m in trouble.

“Come. Tell your friend goodbye,” my father orders.

“Bye. I hope you feel better.”

I slowly rise from the chair and slink my way toward my father. Before leaving the nurse’s office, I peer back over my shoulder and wave at Stephanie.

I come out of the memory gasping, desperately trying to get air into my lungs. Watching that through my adult eyes, I easily see that Stephanie was sick. Her pale skin, the whites surrounding her eyes were tinted yellow, and she was so thin, fragile. I don’t remember ever seeing her at school again, but then again, I got in so much trouble that day, I didn’t make many friends after that. I kept to myself and made sure to keep my jacket on.

“I’m so sorry that’s what you experienced, young one,”Tanith says gently, and when I cast my eyes to her and Gaster, I realize I broadcasted that to them both.

“Don’t be. It’s okay.”

Gaster clears his throat and squeezes my hand tightly before saying,“From what I just gathered, that child was ill, and her illness required the blood of others to help her because her body couldn’t do it on its own. That’s how Darstein described the disease.”

Hope, the fickle and misleading emotion, floods my system as I put a death grip on his hand. We have blood in plenty of supply.

“Okay, so we give her some blood. That’ll fix it,”I say excitedly, trying to push myself to my feet, but Gaster holds me down.

“Hold on, Adored. Let’s work it all out again. So we know that the blood will help with the nonmagical disease. The cure will help with the poison. But what did the Mystarians do to fix the Aconight problem?”Tanith asks.

Silence.

I have no clue, and neither does Gaster. There was no information in anything we found in our archives that even alluded to the issue in their realm. This spread happened after the portals closed.

“They burned it,”CC says quietly.

Despite the fire that burns through me, my body suddenly feels like I’ve been dunked in an ice bath. The way he said it makes the hairs along my arms and the back of my neck stand on ends. Tanith’s awareness tickles its way across my skin and I know what she’s going to say.

“Adored…”

“No. It could kill her,”I say, shaking my head furiously.

“What could kill her?”Gaster asks, confused.

“Like I had to do for Keeper and burn the cord from inside his neck. Tanith is going to suggest I burn the Aconight plant out of her blood. But it’s not that simple or straightforward. With Keeper, I had something to pinpoint and command my flame through. This is spreading throughout her entire body. It’s everywhere. I’d have to boil her blood. No. Think of something else,”I command frantically.

“The time has come, filia mea,”CC says softly and I sob as I feel his presence leave me again.

“No, please don’t leave me. Please give me another way.”I cry, begging for another solution, but one never comes.

The buzzing of Gaster’s communicator forces him to withdraw his hand from mine and I grab fistfuls of grass in my hands to keep myself from exploding.

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