Page 125 of Elven Shadow

It had worked in the empty parking lot behind the alley two nights ago and the hundreds of times she’d done this in the past. It should have worked now.

But the second her own magic touched her wounds, the most unbelievable agony coursed through her arm, and it didn’t stop there.

The pain spread through every inch of her skin, lancing through muscle and sinew, spearing through every bone in her body, electrocuting her cells. Rebecca’s left arm began to burn away beneath her own special form of healing, but her entire body boiled with it, as if she’d jumped into the infernal fires to crumble away forever in their depths.

Rebecca only realized she was screaming at her own magic burning itself into her veins when Zida threw open the office door with a bang and scurried out, arms laden with supplies and her beady eyes wider than seemed possible.

“What in the name of the Blue Hells are youdoing?”

Rebecca barely heard her.

She’d tried to heal her own wounds the way she always had, only now, she was destroying herself.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, and the next second, there was nothing at all.

31

Consciousness returned with a flare of twisting pain that made Rebecca’s eyes fly open.

Two enormous, glowing eyes loomed over her, inches from her face, and she couldn’t move.

Dark eyes filled with dark light, scrutinizing her with a frigid, calculating certainty that made her blood run cold.

Whoever’s eyes these were, they meant trouble.

She’d been found.

With a shrieking gasp, Rebecca tried to scramble away from the dark light. Those luminescent irises felt like they were burning a hole through her. But the infirmary bed was too small and too soft, its wheeled legs too unsteady to support a quick getaway.

Instead of escaping, she rammed the bed’s frame back against the wall again, filling the room with a startling crash.

A ball of crackling red battle magic flared in Rebecca’s hand before she could take in any other details of her surroundings.

“Step back, and I won’t kill you where you stand,” she growled.

“Whoa, whoa, hey! Sorry. I…I didn’t know you were this picky about your personal space. I guess only when you’re not unconscious, huh?”

The nervous giggle stoked a memory in Rebecca’s mind. A memory that instantly made her feel like an idiot for thinking she’d been in immediate danger. For thinking her enemies had found her here.

She was still in the infirmary. Still lying on the wheeled cot where she’d collapsed. And those dark eyes weren’t dark at all but merely the play of shadow and light across a pair of luminous violet eyes.

Rebecca cleared her throat and darted quick glances around the infirmary, hoping her visitor had been too startled to notice her flare of instant panic. “I still need my personal space when I’m unconscious too, Nyx.”

“Yeah, sure. I was…just checking.” The katari offered a sheepish shrug and another nervous giggle. “I had a feeling you’d wake up soon. Nobody believed me, but I kept telling them, ‘Wait and see. I have a feeling about the elf.’ And here you are.”

Rebecca blinked heavily at Nyx, using the excuse of grogginess to hide the fact that her mind raced tirelessly through a short checklist of critical confirmation points before she could relax.

She still wore her own clothes, which meant no one had tried to undress her or go through her things. She was still in the infirmary, though there was no sign of Zida. No more explosions or tremors moving through the compound, nor did it sound like there was any trouble in the hall.

No militant Bloodshadow force come to collect their greatest weapon. No angry mob ready to kick Shade’s one elf off the premises and out of the organization altogether.

She was still safe for now, but that could change at any minute.

“Are you trying to tell me everyone thinks I’m dead?” she asked, trying to keep Nyx occupied while she worked through her checklist.

Then she remembered the tiny wooden box she’d been stupid enough to keep in her room instead of on her person at all times and fervently patted down both sides of her jacket only to realize she wasn’t wearing her jacket. Zida must’ve removed it.

“Um, well…” Nyx replied, “it definitely came up as apossibility. Once or twice…”

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