Chapter Eight

 

 

 

 

Benton

 

The wait was killing me, but Ilarial finally slid into the room where Anna clung to life by a thread.

“Finally,” I breathed out while Isolde eyed me with a warning. I didn’t care if I sounded entitled, but it was my little sister lying in the bed, dying before my eyes. I couldn’t sit still anymore. “You have to save her. Tell me you can do something.”

I watched Ilarial give me a subtle nod as she approached Anna’s bedside and scooped up her frail hand. It looked paper thin and fragile, as though she would tear if touched. I held my breath, hoping the oracle who’d helped my older sister during her transition to life in Faerie, who’d showed her how to master her magic, could now help another sister of mine. What if she couldn’t? Anna was different than Shade; she was purely human. Though full of elemental fire magic, she, James, and I were not of this world. We were anomalies and didn’t belong in this place. Maybe that was what was poisoning Anna.

Faerie had already stolen one of my sisters. Would it take another?

Ilarial’s face screwed up in concentration as she closed her eyes. She pressed her fingers against Anna’s for several minutes. The room seemed to hold its collective breath as we waited for her diagnosis. I, for one, felt like I was dying inside with each second that passed.

“Ilarial?” I finally demanded, unable to bear the silence any longer. “Is she dying?”

“She will if she stays in Faerie.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“She’s sick, yes, but she can be healed. Not by magic or anything here in Faerie. Her human side is what is threatening her life. She needs surgery to repair her heart. Something is wrong with it, but magic can do nothing for her here.”

“What do we do?” Isolde stepped up because I’d been left speechless. My sister was dying because she was human? What sort of crap was this?

“She must be taken to the human realm, to a hospital. There, they’ll find what’s wrong with her heart and heal her. It’s not something I can fix.”

She let go of Anna and approached me. “Benton. You must take her there. Quickly, or she’ll die.”

“Will she be able to return afterward?”

“I do not know.”

My chest tightened. Her non-answers were too much for me. I wanted to scream or fight, I wasn’t sure which. Either would be of no help, though.

“I—I… how do I get her back home? I can’t teleport.”

“I brought Camulus with me. He can help.”

I lifted an eyebrow. The guy wasn’t on my favorite’s list, but his help was definitely better than nothing. It was this or… I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about what might happen if we didn’t get Anna back to a hospital immediately.

“No? You don’t want his help?” Ilarial was taken aback.

“No… I mean yes, I’d like his help very much. I was just thinking of the worst-case scenario. Where is he? We need to leave now.”

She nodded and motioned toward the servant standing at the door, peering around the corner. It was one of her own apprentices. I knew she took them on once in a while. Apparently, right now, she had one. The girl looked young. She was as thin as a skeleton but had a healthy glow. She nodded in Ilarial’s direction and disappeared for a moment. It appeared they communicated telepathically for she’d been too far away to hear anything going on in the room. It was interesting to see Ilarial in her element as a healer. I had never gotten to know her very well.

“Benton, you’ll have to carry Anna.” Isolde stepped up and reached for the blanket covering my sister’s thin body. She had shrunk in the couple of days that she’d been ill and was now bonier than ever. I nodded and waited as she wrapped Anna in a sheet to keep the cold off her. My sister moaned in her sleep, muttering under breath. Her lips were cracking, and the magic glamour from being in the Land of Faerie seemed to fade away before my eyes. Her skin was not porcelain, nor was it perfect. I could see the mask of humanity beneath, a young woman of eighteen sick and near death. She looked like a skeleton as well. I wanted to see her how she used to be.

Not like this. Don’t go, Anna. Hold on just a bit longer.

Isolde placed my sister, light as a feather, right into my arms. Holding her thin frame made me shiver. She was burning hot, but her fingers reaching up to unconsciously touch my chin felt as cold as ice, as though she were already a corpse. She seemed like an angel of death in my arms, and I choked back a sob.

“Camulus.” I nodded at the green faery standing solemnly before us. The guy never smiled anymore. He used to joke around with Shade a lot and flirt shamelessly, from the stories she’d told me. I’d never known that version of Camulus. The guy I knew was always punishing himself, stoic and cold. He bowed at my request and reached out to hold on to my arm as Isolde hooked on to the other side of me and then held hands with Camulus.

“Let’s go.”