Page 108 of Bonds of Magic
“Hans?” Autumn said, her voice loud enough to cut through the noise in the hall. “Hans, are you okay?”
He clearly wasn’t. One hand clutched his throat, and his mouth gaped open like a fish. His eyes were wide and terrified, and his body lurched against the table. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Are you choking?” Autumn asked.
Not waiting for an answer, she stood and pulled Hans to his feet. Moving behind him, she wrapped her arms around his body, clasped her hands together, and pressed up and in sharply. She did it three times, but nothing happened, except Hans’s face getting redder.
She tried again, and she pressed so hard, his whole body jerked, but nothing came out.
“You’re going—” she said, pressing in again “—to be—” another press “—okay.”
But still, nothing came out of his mouth, and after the last press, he slipped through Autumn’s arms down to the floor. He wasn’t breathing, and his hands and feet began to drum on the floor as his body convulsed, wracked by movements he couldn’t control.
“What’s happening?” Autumn asked, looking around in dismay.
The rest of us were still getting to our feet. It had all happened so fast. Orlando was the next person to react.
“He’s choking, alright,” he said, kneeling down next to Hans on the floor. “But the cause might not be physical.”
Orlando muttered something and waved his hands across Hans’s body. A blue light sprang up, then turned a sickly yellow. Orlando’s eyes narrowed, and he reached into the pocket of his blazer.
He pulled out a small glass vial, tugged the stopper loose, then looked over at Autumn.
“Salt. I need the salt.”
She passed him a shaker from the center of the table. Orlando filled his palm, then cupped it so the salt funneled into the vial. The liquid inside went from clear to green as soon as the salt touched it. He put the stopper back in, shook it vigorously, then uncorked it a final time.
“Hold his mouth open,” he said to Autumn, who’d knelt down to join him on the floor.
She tilted his head back and opened his mouth as best she could, with his body still shaking. Orlando poured the contents of the vial into Hans’s mouth, though a good bit of it splashed onto his jaw and shirt collar too.
“Hold him now,” Orlando said to Autumn, and he went back to muttering spells and waving his hands across Hans’s body.
A moment later, Hans went still. His limbs ceased their frantic tapping on the floor. His head lolled back onto Autumn’s lap. His tongue hung out. He looked awful.
Then he made a huge sucking noise as he took his first breath in two minutes. He lifted his head, looking at all of us looking at him. The purple color was draining from his face. He was still flushed, and still wearing his eyepatch, but he was beginning to look ‘normal’ again. Or, at least, not suffocating. That was a definite improvement.
“What. Happened.” His words came out in shaky gasps. “How did—what—how?”
“You were choking,” Orlando told him crisply. “I was able to save you, but it was a close call.”
Hans inhaled deeply, but it sounded hoarse. His face crumpled in pain. “I’ll. Say.”
He really hadn’t had a good twenty-four hours.
“Do you know someone who wants you dead?” Orlando asked, looking at him seriously.
Hans’s eyes went wide—wider than they already were. “What? Why?”
“Because you didn’t choke on a piece of food,” Orlando told him. “You were poisoned.”
***
The refectory was in chaos when Isaac arrived. The students closest to the faculty tables had seen Hans’s escape from death, and in less than a minute, the refectory was buzzing with talk of a poisoner on the loose and danger stalking Vesperwood’s halls. They quieted slightly—but only slightly—when Isaac entered the room and joined the faculty at the far end.
He must have come in a hurry, because he arrived quicker than I would have expected. He didn’t look like he’d been disturbed at all. He still wore his impeccable three-piece suit, not a hair out of place.
Hans tried to rise when he saw Isaac, but Orlando pressed him down again. “Wait another minute,” he told Hans. “Catch your breath.”
