Wynter's End Read online

  The cousins nodded their agreement. “We feel we should be doing something instead of just waiting around. We’ll come with you.”

  Erik stayed, watching the three of them go. “I’ll take you in to see him,” he said quietly.

  “I’ll be okay if you want to go with them.” I knew it was a lie as soon as I said the words. In no way, shape, or form was I going to be okay, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “No, I want to stay close.” His voice was hoarse and scratchy. “You know, in case he needs me.”

  “Okay.” I followed him through the giant double doors and into the hospital. We went down a long corridor, and I noticed he was walking slower. Then he stopped at a door.

  “I feel like I need to warn you,” he said. “He looks…bad. Really bad.” His face took on a faraway look, and from the thoughts I was picking up on, he was trying to think of some way to let me know what to expect, while saving some of the horror of it all.

  I touched his arm, gave him a small smile, and pushed the door open. There were several doctors and nurses milling around the large room, and in the center of it was a bed with machines and tubes running everywhere.

  I froze, my bravery gone. Even the small glimpses I’d caught from Erik’s mind hadn’t prepared me for this.

  Adam was lying on the bed, but had I not known it was him, I wouldn’t have recognized him. Every visible inch of his body was swollen and bloody.

  One of the doctors was checking a machine near his head.

  “Dr. O,” I whispered.

  The Chickcharney turned at my voice, his hearing perfectly weeding me out of all the noise around him. His fluffy white eyebrows raised at the sight of me standing there.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said as he came toward us, trying to back me out the door.

  “Please,” I managed to say. The tears running down my cheeks made it hard to speak. “Tell me.”

  He pursed his lips, then took me by the arm and led me to a corner of the room toward a chair. “Sit.”

  I did as he said, then waited.

  “We’re getting him ready for surgery,” he said. “If he had been human, he wouldn’t be in this room at all. He’d be in there now. There is internal bleeding that is going to have to be stopped. And soon.” He glanced over his shoulder. “The only reason he was in here was because I expected him to heal. I wanted to give him time. Unfortunately, we’re out of time now.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” I knew from the look on his face it was a question he couldn’t answer, and I knew that as a doctor, he wasn’t going to lie to me, even though it was what I wanted most in the world.

  “It isn’t looking good,” he admitted.

  “We’re ready,” a nurse announced, and in the next instant, the bed holding Adam wheeled toward the door.

  “Wait!” I sprang up and ran toward him, wanting to be near him. What if this was the last time I would see him?

  “You can’t be in here,” the nurse said, but then Doctor O said something I didn’t hear, and she stopped blocking me.

  I felt the doctor’s hand on my shoulder. “Be quick.”

  I took another step toward the bed and wedged myself between two machines attached to the side. From here, I was as close as I was going to be able to get. I reached out and smoothed a long lock of hair back from his forehead, then leaned over and placed a kiss to his brow.

  “I love you always,” I whispered in his ear.

  One of the machines began beeping.

  “We have to go, now!” the doctor ordered, and I was pushed out of the way. Adam disappeared through the door in a flurry of blood-stained white.

  I stood there staring at the door as it smacked back and forth. It was quiet now, and I was alone, but still I stood there watching, and I became lost in the reality of what I’d seen.

  “Are you all right? Nikki?” Erik asked, repeating himself when I didn’t answer right away.

  Eventually, I came out of the fog enough that his worried face came into view.

  I wasn’t all right, and I couldn’t make myself lie and say I was. I didn’t know if I’d ever be all right again.

  Because in that last second, right before the machine went off, Adam’s eyelids had fluttered at the sound of my voice, and I’d caught a glimpse of his beautiful golden eyes—eyes I hadn’t seen since Wynter saved him so long ago.

  Now I knew why his magic was gone. When I had taken Wynter’s magic, I’d also taken his. Their power had been linked. He had been a part of her in some way, and when her magic left, his had gone too, though it must have faded more slowly.

  Now he was on the brink of death once again.

  And it was all my fault.

  Chapter Six

  “I won’t give up. I promise I won’t ever give up.” I chanted over and over as I drove home. When I got there, I parked the Jeep and ran into the house.

  There was a way to bring his magic back, and I alone held the power to do it. I unclasped the necklace from my neck the instant the door shut, and I removed the tiny book from its hiding place.

  I sat on the couch and waited for those few precious seconds as the book’s magic returned it to its normal size. As if it knew what I wanted, it came to life, flipping to the page where Wynter had given her magic.

  All I had to do was take it, the same way I’d taken the souls of those four animals. Then Adam’s magic would be returned to him, I told myself, not letting doubt creep into my mind for even a single second.

  First, I’d thought about going back to Mr. Perkins’s house and demanding to return Mrs. Graham’s magic to her whether she wanted it back or not. I was actually about to make the turn into their driveway to do exactly that when I’d spotted the two of them on the porch watching the sunset. They looked so happy I couldn’t make myself go any farther. I kept driving.

  It was that instant I’d decided I could do this myself. If I could hold the magic of so many different forms, why couldn’t I take that of a Spriteblood too?

  Thankfully, I was alone to see how it was going to work out. I’d managed to give Erik the task of taking Ronnie back home and then somehow managed to convince him to head back to the Res afterward to check on the rest of the guys “in case they’d found something in the books that would help.”

  But I had the book that would help in my hands. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to will myself to calm down. I truly didn’t know much about Spriteblood. Wynter hadn’t exactly given me a laundry list of her abilities nor a spreadsheet to tell me her weak spots. What if her magic clashed with what I already had? Would it make me a monster of some sort, mixing the power of a Seer, animals, and a Spriteblood in one human body?

  My hands shook for a moment with the thought.

  Then the phone rang, and I froze. I trembled as I sat the book down and reached for the receiver. I stopped for just a second, my fingertips brushing it. What if it was a call telling me I was too late? That he was gone?

  I swallowed hard once and pulled the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  My mom’s chipper voice came through. “Hey, honey, just wanted to check in on you and see how you’re doing.”

  Relief coursed through me. “I’m okay. Are you guys all right?”

  “Yep. We made it here safe and sound. How are things going on your end?”

  Even though we’d had our breakthrough of information before she’d left, for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what had happened to Adam. And I definitely couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of telling her what my plan was to fix it.

  “Everything is good,” I said, lying. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, my conscience chanted as I made the necessary “mm-hmms” and “okays” to get me to the end of our conversation.

  “I love you, honey,” she said, getting ready to say goodbye.

  “I love you too,” I said a little too forcefully, my throat constricting on the words.

  Thankf
ully, she didn’t pick up on it, and within the next few seconds, the line went dead.

  There wouldn’t be another chance of it ringing. I tossed it on the couch, picked up the book, and slammed my palm onto the center of Wynter’s page.

  I’d closed my eyes tight the instant my skin hit the paper, waiting for the magic of the Spriteblood to seep into me and take over. When nothing happened, I opened one eye cautiously to peek at my hand.

  Yep, it was on the right spot.

  Why wasn’t it working?

  “I will take the magic of the Spriteblood,” I told the book, in case it wasn’t understanding what I wanted to do. When still nothing happened, I added: “And whatever horrible side effects that come with it.”

  Still nothing.

  I took my hand away, then put it back to try again. That’s when I noticed the ink fading from the paper. In a matter of seconds, I was staring at a blank page with no indication there had ever been anything there.

  I flipped through the book. Everything else was as it should be. Just not that last page.

  “Now what do I do?” I felt completely hopeless. Not only could I not take Wynter’s magic, I couldn’t even ask her to take it back now.

  With each second, I knew Adam was getting closer to death. I knew he wasn’t going to survive without his magic. Dr. O hadn’t said as much, but I knew.

  I laid the book down and curled up on the couch, then hugged my knees tight to my chest. I hated feeling so hopeless. My brain raced in circles, trying to figure out this seemingly unbeatable puzzle.

  I nearly missed the knock. I sat up and waited, to be sure I hadn’t imagined it. No, there it was again.

  I opened the door to find Claire standing on the porch and realized I hadn’t even thought to look out the window first this time.

  “Hi,” she said and gave me a small, nervous smile. “I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to check on you.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. My first thought upon seeing her was that she’d somehow been the one sent to give me bad news.

  As if reading my mind, she continued. “Erik wanted me to tell you that Adam’s still hanging in there. He just talked to his dad, and they’ve managed to fix the internal bleeding. He isn’t out of the woods by a long shot, but he’s better than he was earlier.”

  I managed to twist my lips into a small smile. “That’s the best news I’ve had all evening.” I stepped to the side. “Come on in.”

  She stepped into the living room, and her eyes landed on the book I’d laid on the coffee table.

  “Is that…” She broke off, taking another step toward it.

  “Don’t touch it!” Somehow, I managed to get between her and the coffee table in record time. “It’s spelled. The last one scorched anyone who tried to hold it. Well, except for me.”

  “Oh…okay. That is the book you were telling me about though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I picked it up and took it with me to the couch and sat down. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her to not touch it, I just didn’t want the book to somehow sense she was there and send arcs of flame at her from a distance. “It’s not been behaving normally,” I explained, patting the cover. I realized as soon as the words left my lips that any non-magical person in the world would likely think me insane. How would a book normally behave?

  She lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, just took a seat in a safe position across from me in the chair, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear.

  “So what’s our plan?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  She smiled. “I know I haven’t known you very long, but I can tell you have a plan of some sort. I can see it on your face.” Her smile faltered. “Logan and I were there when Adam fell. We tried to get to him, but it happened so fast, we didn’t get there in time. I know if something happened to Logan, I’d be trying to find a way to help him. I know you’re thinking of something. Count me in. I want to help.”

  I could use some help, I decided. I was getting nowhere in figuring out why the book wasn’t working.

  Two heads are better than one, I thought, and so I told her everything that had happened since I had seen her last.

  She listened, eyes springing wide when I told her about Wynter’s visit and how I’d taken her magic. Then she looked thoughtful, biting her bottom lip when I made it to the part of me trying to take that magic to save Adam.

  “The book isn’t cooperating,” I said. “The page just went blank when I tried to do it. Always before, I’d feel the tingle of magic on the paper when I touched it. There isn’t anything there now. It’s as if it just evaporated into thin air.”

  The same hopeless feeling I’d felt before she arrived took over again, and I felt my eyes fill with tears. One rolled down my cheek. Annoyed, I brushed it away.

  “It seems to me that the problem is with the book,” she said finally.

  I looked at her blankly. Had she not heard a word I’d said?

  “Let me rephrase that.” She laughed. “From what I understand, there isn’t anything wrong with the magic. It went where it was supposed to go. For some reason, it just didn’t hold it inside like it was supposed to do.” She paused, making sure I was following her line of reasoning. “The book is broken,” she said in conclusion. “So what do we do about that?”

  “We go ask Efflehurt why it isn’t working.” Excitement replaced all my fear and hopelessness in an instant, and I sprang up from the couch. “He’ll know how to fix it!”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Claire said happily as she stood and followed me to the door. “Shall we fly?”

  Chapter Seven

  Soaring through the air felt natural this time, like I’d been made to travel this way the entire time. I wasn’t sure if it was a matter of being more comfortable in my form as the crow, if it was the fact that Claire was flying alongside me, or if it was the rush of adrenaline coursing through me now that I realized I might still be able to save Adam.

  There still might be time. Please, let there be time.

  My human thoughts took over for a moment, and I faltered, unsure of which way I was supposed to go. I knew the crow had been one of Efflehurt’s, and it knew the way back to him. I was going to have to relax and let it take us there.

  I took a deep breath and spread my wings out, letting the wind catch beneath them. It brushed against my dark feathers, and I enjoyed the way it felt. The sky must have wanted us to be there. It was a part of us, and we were a part of it.

  So this is what it’s like to truly be a creature of the air, I thought, glancing down at the wide expanse of forest below. The trees were a canopy of vibrant greens, both light and dark, as if nature had painted them just to be seen by us as we flew above.

  We were heading east. Claire came closer, making a gesture with her head toward the forest below. This wasn’t the way we’d come before. We had long since passed the spot where we’d seen Efflehurt’s hut last time.

  I knew she was worried we were going the wrong way, but I was letting my crow lead us there, and I trusted he knew where we were going.

  Claire continued to fly near me as we continued onward, and a few moments later, I lowered myself to fly just above the treetops.

  Then I spotted it, a small curl of smoke that wisped upward between the branches of a rather large oak tree.

  We were here.

  I led us down, and we landed a short distance away. Magic zinged along the surface of my skin like tiny electric currents.

  “His magic is strong,” Claire whispered, no doubt feeling the same display of power as she rubbed her forearms.

  The previous times I had come to Efflehurt, he had known the instant we were near. He had also been picky about those who had come through the magical shields surrounding his home. I knew he’d know we were here now, and for the first time, I wondered how he would feel about Claire being with me.

  Feeling horribly guilty about being a terrible friend, I had just turned to warn her sh
e might want to fly back up and away until I was finished with this visit when none other than Efflehurt appeared in the doorway of his hut, a scowl painted deep in the wrinkles on his face.

  “Ah don’t know why I bother anymore. No matter where I move to, ye always manage to find me in some fashion or the other.” He complained as he thrust his cane into the ground before him in emphasis. “Every. Single. Time.” He glared at us for a moment more, then sighed, turning to go back inside. “Well, come on then. No need in wasting time, eh?”

  Claire and I looked at each other. What an odd choice of words. How much did he know?

  “Maybe he reads minds,” she muttered softly, just loud enough for me to hear.

  Efflehurt stopped and looked at us over his shoulder. “A psychic ah am not,” he said grumpily. “Ah don’t have all day to stand and look at you. There be books to make, and ye be wasting my time.”

  “Should we really be following him in there?” Claire hissed into my ear—the first sign indicating she wasn’t completely comfortable in the Bog Elf’s presence.

  But we were already inside now, and he’d already perched on a stool behind a small table that held various pieces of a book.

  “If ah’d have wanted yer skin, I’d have taken it by now, Yokai,” he growled at her.

  Claire took an automatic step backward, so I took one in front to block her. “What we’re here for is to ask you about this book,” I said, unclasping my necklace.

  At the word “book,” his scowl turned from Claire behind me to the necklace in my hand.

  “Aye,” he replied. “What of it? Ye have her second book. Ah won’t be makin’ her anymore.” He glanced above him at a crow perched high in the rafters of the hut. “They tell me her magic is gone now anyway. She won’t be finding me again.” Then he glared at me. “If only ah could say the same thing for you.”

  I bit my lip. If I’d had any doubts the crows weren’t his creatures, they were completely gone now.

  At least I wasn’t getting the impression he knew the reason I had found him so easily—or that I’d been the one responsible for taking Wynter’s power.