Page 103 of Elven Shadow

Finally, Rebecca managed to focus her gaze beyond her immediate surroundings—which consisted only of Zida hovering in her face. Almost instantly, she found the pile of lumpy black obstacles piled up at the base of the stairs. The ones that had tripped her.

Now that she thought about it, those glinting pieces did look quite a bit like severed limbs. And a head. And sure, put together four different ways, the rest of it might have been a torso.

Had she really done that to the last homunculus?

“Me too,” she replied absently.

“Oh, yeah? You assume? Normally, I’d call bullshit on that, but right now, you look like you could sneeze without even noticing it.” Zida snorted and finally removed the vial’s stopper with a light pop before thrusting the open glass container under Rebecca’s nose. “You know what? Don’t hurt yourself trying to explain. Just take this.”

Rebecca’s eyes felt like marbles rolling around in her head before she stared at the viable again. “It’s empty—”

“Mouth shut, lungs open, elf,” the healer snapped. “Breathe.”

That was what Rebecca had been trying to do this whole time, and it never should have been this hard. She was about to try explaining this to the old healer jamming an empty vial under her nose, and of course she had to breathe before speaking.

The second she did, a blinding white light blasted through her vision.

It cracked through her skull, searing her brain and her eyes, then surged through her to touch everything between her gaping mouth and her toes.

With a wheeze, she tried to pull away from the vial, though she wasn’t entirely sure she could move her body while the white light remained. Being blinded by a quick sniff didn’t seem much better than being blinded by smoke, either.

The high-pitched ringing in her ears topped it all off as the final accent, and her head felt crushed in and stretched out at the same time.

Rebecca finally drew in a long, gasping breath unobscured by pressure or heaviness or whatever had been trying to kill her. Her eyes flew open, wide and alert.

It felt like she’d just been pumped full of the powerful bluehinwidrink the old-world soldiers of the Hezhkabohr Sentinel had made themselves infamous for ingesting before battle.

Just like them, she was ready as shit now.

A second later, Zida’s crooked yet surprisingly strong hand pressed down on her shoulder a few times.

“That’ll do ya. For now. Because you need your strength, and you’re no use to any of us down here if you’re a damn puddle on the floor. But it’ll wear off, so don’t do anything stupid until I can take another look at you later.”

Taking another brilliantly vibrant, energizing breath, feeling like she’d finally been ripped out of the worst dream ever, Rebecca gazed up at the hunched old healer and cleared her throat. “That’s…really something. Thanks—”

“Don’t thank me yet, elf. That was just a band-aid, and you’ll have to rip it off soon enough. But for now? It’ll probably do.”

Probably?

Despite the healer’s warning, Rebecca felt incredible. She slid her feet beneath her and pushed herself up off the floor, stepping away from the concrete wall at her back with her balance and strength fully restored. “Damn. Whatwasthat stuff?”

“Exactly what you needed, apparently.” Zida’s beady black eyes traveled up and down her patient’s body, and she almost smirked. “Better hop to it, then.”

“To what, exactly?”

“I’m guessing that’s what we’re all down here to find out.” Zida backed away, settling her crooked hands on her hips.

Rebecca had only enough time to scan the underground parking garage and take note of what did look like Shade’s entire roster of active operatives and support staff all gathered down here while residual explosions still rocked the compound above.

“Hannigan!” Aldous’s roaring cry blasted across the garage, punctuated by the changeling’s loud, heavy footsteps like those preceding a toddler’s imminent tantrum. “What the hell is going on, and why haven’t you told me yet?”

25

The weight of Aldous’s words landed slowly, like a delayed punch to the gut.

Hannigan. He’d been right beside her, hadn’t he?

No, he’d caught her from falling when she’d reached the garage…

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