Page 68 of Spelunking Through Hell

“You want to get the sap into your system if you can,” he said. “It will help.”

“I love these flowers,” I said, and closed my fingers around the stem, barely wincing as the thorns bit into my skin. The pain only lasted for a second before it was followed by the soothing peace of bromeliad toxins, washing all my little aches away. I felt like I could breathe more easily. It was like going from sober to pleasantly drunk without needing to do any swallowing.

“Alice.” I looked to the sound of Thomas’ voice. “Alice, I want you to remember that you consented to this, but you can still tell me ‘no’ at any point. You are allowed to ask me to stop.”

“I know,” I mumbled.

“Do you? Because I don’t care how much you think this is the only way, I’m not going to proceed if you don’t want me to.”

“I want to have more time,” I said. “I want to have more time with you, and with the kids, and I want to seeyouhave time with the kids. I want to have more kids.”

“Not while you’re this inebriated, dear,” said Thomas, sounding faintly amused.

Sally had been unpacking the box while we were talking, laying out an array of tools and vessels around us. Thomas turned to face the room, raising his hands.

“You have known me by many names,” he said. “And those names were necessary and good, for this place, for this time. We are leaving them all behind today, along with all bargains, all crimes, all rivalries. If this succeeds, we will be free of here, and those of us who came here from other worlds can hopefully go home. Those who were born here can find places to settle where the air is still good and the ground is still fertile.”

“What if we’re not wanted?” demanded a voice.

“We weren’t wanted here, and we did okay,” said Sally. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll survive. That’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done. We’ve survived.”

“I’m going to release the spells outside this room now,” continued Thomas. “It will not be safe to leave here after I’ve done that. If something alarms you, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to stay. The translation charm will not extend beyond this room. The air will not extend beyond this room.”

“We’ll be fine,” said a voice I recognized as Lyn.

“Not everyone will,” said Thomas. “Stay inside.”

A general murmur of assent met what wasn’t really a request by any definition of the word; he reached down, and Sally handed him a lit candle I hadn’t seen her lighting. Everything was sort of fuzzy. I wasn’t tracking well. Thomas blew the candle out, and the air in the room got brighter, somehow, like we were on a plane that had just fully pressurized. The murmuring got louder.

“It is done,” he said, handing the candle back to Sally. Then he turned to me. “Can you still hear me?”

I could. I smiled and nodded.

“Can I have the flower back?”

I frowned, pulling it a little closer to myself.

He sighed. “Alice, I needed you slightly anesthetized, not too drugged to understand simple requests. If you don’t give me that flower back, you’ll keep forcing further doses of sap into your bloodstream, and you won’t be able to stay awake through the necessary procedure. Please give it back.”

He sounded very serious, and like this was very important. I sighed and let go.

“Thank you,” he said, whisking the crushed flower away before taking my hands in his. “I’m going to begin by peeling off a portion of the pneuma. This should allow me to strengthen the effects already in play and begin attempting to construct a door. I won’t take more than I could pull from an ordinary traveler. Nod if you understand.”

I nodded.

“Boss?” asked Sally, unsure.

“This is what I did to you when you first arrived,” he said. “It won’t hurt her too badly.”

“I said he could,” I said, voice gone dreamy.

“Yes, you did,” Thomas said. “Sally, I know you’re concerned, but I promise you, I explained as much as I could before we reached this point. I can’t be sure of what will happen as we continue; I’ve never removed this much from one person before, and yes, it could hurt her. Magic has a cost. It could hurt me, too. I have to get us out of here, and this is the only chance we have left at this point.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either,” he said, with deep regret, and still holding my hands, hepulled.

The human body is full of things we can’t see. The air in our lungs, the sugar in our blood, the electricity in our cells. The feeling of Thomas pulling wasn’t like a physical thing, but it was a physical thing at the same time; there was no other way to wrap my head around it. He was using a mechanism I didn’t have and thus couldn’t fully tense against, like having him try to suck the air out of me during a kiss, or somehow drain the glucose from my veins.

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