Page 84 of A City of Emeralds and Envy
There is barely enough room to be
And I am not even sure
What
I am
31
The bolt of white lightning strikes Jasper full in the chest and he falls backward, slamming onto the emerald floor. My scream rends the air of the throne room.
His lovely face is tipped up, blue eyes sightless, lips parted. He looks startled.
There’s a gaping hole in Jasper’s chest where his heart used to be. An entire chunk of his bones, skin, and flesh—gone. Disintegrated, immolated. The edges are blackened, steaming, and smoke rises from the burnt flesh. Gray shadows creep outward from the ravaged wound.
Caer flings himself onto his knees beside me, a desperate whine in his throat.
“Riordan!” I look up at the White Rabbit, fists clenched so tight my nails draw blood from my palms. “Save him! You can save him like you did me—the vital essences—blood and cum and spit and tears—”
“Beloved.” Riordan’s voice is deeper than ever, a dark river of misery. “You were human, and still alive. He has been struck down by a god-star. I cannot save him.”
Jasper’s golden skin is turning gray, death spreading over his body even as I watch. I can’t bear it.
“No!” I shriek at Riordan. “Youstopit. Do something!”
His scarlet eyes shine wet, like pools of blood. “If we were back at the Dread Court, there might be something I could try—but here, I can’t…”
West steps past him. “I can preserve him like this, for a while at least.” He spreads his hands over Jasper’s body, enveloping him in green mist. “The fade won’t spread, not until my magic dissipates.”
“How long?” Caer chokes out.
“My spell will last for a few weeks, maybe. Enough time for you to get back to the Dread Court. The barrier around the Isle should dissolve now that the god-star is permanently trapped in the scrying stone.”
“One has to wonder at the choice of the other god-stars, confining him on this particular Isle, where so many gods’-tears existed,” says Dorothy quietly. “It’s almost as if they were testing the inhabitants of the Isle, to see if anyone was strong enough to bind him eternally.”
“Maybe the other god-stars could punish him, but not bind him,” West says. He steps back, looking down at Jasper, whose skin is now pale green, shimmering with magic. “I’ve done what I can. This should preserve him until you can devise a way to save him, if that’s even possible.” He shrugs casually, and I feel like slapping him for it, even though he just showed us kindness.
Slowly, heavily, Riordan kneels at my other side. I clutch his arm, a desperate, spastic grip. “I can’t be happy until he is all right,” I whisper hoarsely.
He nods, his ravaged face more mournful than ever.
Caer looks at both of us with tear-bright eyes. “I want to run,” he confesses in a choked voice. “I want to flee far away so I don’t have to watch this, or feel it. But I won’t. I’ll stay, always.”
I wrap my arm around his shoulders, and shift my grip on Riordan, circling his waist with my other arm. We bow over Jasper together, the two Unseelie and I, wreathed in mutual pain for the loss of our sweet mate.
Dimly I hear Dorothy saying, “How will we get them to the Dread Court?”
“I have a trove of magical artifacts in my castle,” West explains. “Among them is a mirror I once used to speak with a few contacts on the Faerie mainland. There’s a particular acquaintance who used to ship me some quality mushrooms from her garden, before the barrier formed around the Isle and we could no longer communicate. I will try to contact Opal. If she can show us her surroundings, Dorothy, you can see the location and transport Alice and the others there.”
A golden thread of hope twines through my heart at his words. Fed by that bit of hope, my brain begins whirling through possibilities, picking up and discarding the various bits of knowledge I’ve gleaned about the Fae and the way they heal. Hunting relentlessly for a chance, for an answer.
At last it comes—the bright flare of an idea—gears clicking together.
“Riordan.” I turn to him, urgency in my voice. “I know who can help us.”
32
I stand in the mushroom garden, watching Opal and the others prepare the mostly-dead Scarecrow for transport to the Court of Delight. They plan to ask someone called Finias for help, as well as the new Queen of the Unseelie Court—sometimes they refer to her as Ygraine, and sometimes “the Hatter.”
