Page 72 of The Demon's Discovery
I was still wrangling with the notion when Greta came around the corner of the infirmary, arm in arm with Calla. I couldn’t even recall what I’d been upset about when she looked my way and smiled, I was too busy drowning in my adoration of her.
“I don’t like this,”I grumbled, heart thumping almost painfully against my ribs as Greta prepared to consume her cleansing elixir. “We could always wait until tomorrow. What if it puts you out of commission for the celebration?” I paced up and down the aisle between the infirmary beds, and Greta was seated on the trunk at the foot of the first bed.
Everyone stood around nearby, except for Grace. She was trying to be inconspicuous from a spot halfway across the room, which naturally drew the very attention she was trying to avoid.
“Then our kin will be thankful for a reason to continue celebrating another day,” Imogen said dryly. “He’s a worrier, yeah?” She made a questioning face as she looked from me to her father.
My fangs dropped instantly, and a feral noise rumbled through me.
“Vassago,” Greta said quietly but with steel in her voice. I snapped my head toward her, finding a disappointed frown on her beautiful face. “I’m going to be fine. They’re trying to help.”
I inhaled slowly, squeezing my hands into fists. “I know.”
Rylan looked up at me with a knowing smile. “The mate bond can be quite troublesome, can’t it?” He patted my shoulder, and I found the gesture partly patronizing though he meant it to be soothing. I recalled all too well the trouble I’d dished out to him intentionally over Calla, and I knew turnabout was only fair play. “We’re not going to let anything happen to her.”
“It’s not up to you, though, is it?” I snarled. He opened his mouth, but I continued before he could speak. “And that’s the problem. She’s taking a potion nobody knows anything about from a centuries-old grimoire put together by a woman scorned.One could arguethewoman scorned. From a fae recipe no less. Nobody else can even read the damn thing to verify the correct ingredients or measurements.” My hands had begun to tremble with the notion something terrible might happen. It gripped me with a terror I had no idea I was capable of feeling. Greta reached for me, tucking my hand between hers.
“You want to make her better?” Lovette asked, boldly stepping up to my side. “Remove the binding, have me try to undo the sutures?”
“Of course I do but?—”
“Then trust me,” Greta blurted, leaving Lovette with whatever she was about to say caught on her tongue. I felt the words like a physical blow. “I knew the recipe was the right one the moment I saw it in the book. I know that I made it properly. So trustme.”
There was no way for me to sensibly argue with that. I’d been the one pushing her all this time to listen to her instincts, to believe that she could do the hard things. How could I be the one doubting her now?
I sagged before bringing her hand up to my mouth and kissing her knuckles before releasing it again. “I do. I trust you, Dragonfly.”
“Good.” She glanced at Rylan, who gave a shallow nod. After picking up and examining the flask, she gulped down the contents. The infirmary was suddenly so void of sound it was as though someone had sucked all the oxygen out. “Tastes like I rolled some old coins around in my mouth.” She coughed, accepting the water Lovette handed to her, and greedily drank it down as well.
“Will we have to wait long, do you think?” Calla asked, her eyes—as well as everyone else’s—fixed on Greta. She looked around nervously, and her fingers twitched on her thigh.
“Alright?”
“I’m fine.”
I sat beside Greta, pulling her toward me with one hand. I rested my lips on her forehead, breathing in the soft floral scent of her hair. With my eyes closed, I willed the wild energy coursing through me to quiet. She was my peace, but it was not my turn to be coddled.
Everyone was quiet as we waited, Lovette shifting supplies around restlessly at her work station.
“Oh.” The exclamation originated with Calla, but quickly rippled through the rest of the group.
“Greta?” Magnus asked quietly.
When I opened my eyes, Rylan was staring at Greta intensely, hands held out loosely but with his electric power at the ready. “Vago, could you step away, please?” My brother delivered the words in a tone so gentle it struck fear deep in my heart.
I glanced from him to Greta, who looked exactly like the elixir had in its bottle. She was surrounded by shimmery white, bathed in an ethereal glow from her hair to her toes.
“I’m fine,” she said, as though reassuring herself as well as us. “It doesn’t feel like anything at all.” I stood, taking a single short step away from her side as she marveled at her skin, turning her opalescent arms over and back again. As she examined herself, the pearly sheen began to shift. It darkened, swirling into gray smoke as it settled like a layer of clothing on her form. “How does it not feel like anything?” she mused, smiling despite the terrifying transformation happening with her as a source. A complex mandala began to glow over her midsection.
“Is that…?” Lovette gestured, eyes wide with awe.
Rylan walked around to the side of the bed, nodding. “A seal. A powerful one.” He glanced over at me. “And you told me not to come. That I wasn’t needed.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, crossing my arms so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out for her again.
“Would you mind standing, Greta?” Rylan asked, electricity building around his hands.
Greta got to her feet, the shimmery smoke clinging to her form now a deep green, the seal a golden circle that took up her whole torso. The complicated tangle of geometric shapes and mysterious symbols inside turned almost lazily, as though her heartbeat propelled them. It reminded me of the insides of a clock.
