Shadows of the Sky

3. Reine-1

3

Reine

“Excuse me?” I asked. “Fae Fire poisoning? That’s not possible. At least, that’s not what happened.”

“And what did happen?” Barton raised an eyebrow.

Drat, rookie mistake. He knew a Fae couldn’t lie, and fatigue kept me from making the effort to twist the truth, so I gave him the basics. “He spent too long in Faerie, and then he got caught in the middle of a Fae battle. There was no Fae fire, though.”

“His lungs were in poor shape. I had to use a cryo fidelis spell to start repairing them.”

I recoiled internally. “You did what? What were you thinking? You could have killed him.” A movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention—a gray tail disappearing under the table. Good, Sir Raleigh had found us.

“Please, Doctor River, calm down.” He used the tone men have employed on hysterical women from time immemorial. It worked as well as it usually does, too.

I barely kept myself from giving him a dose of Fae fire. “Did he consent to it?”

“No, he was unconscious. Please believe it was a last-ditch effort.” He stood, and, placing a hand on my shoulder, looked deep into my eyes with his thickly lashed hazel ones. “We were losing him, Renee.”

That threw cold water on my ire, and I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I see. How did it work?”

He had the grace not to gloat, but he did allow some smugness through. “He’s now off oxygen, but he’s exhausted and deconditioned. What was he doing in Faerie?”

I sank back in the chair, the weight of almost losing Lawrence a numbing heaviness in my chest. “Walking the Shadowed Path to protect his friend and his friend’s daughter.” I shook my head. “It’s way too complicated to go into now.”

Sir Raleigh jumped on to my lap, and I rubbed his soft ears. His purr rumbled through me.

Now Lucia leaned back, his face a mask of disgust. “Is that a…cat? How did it get in here? Wait.” He narrowed his eyes at Sir Raleigh. “That’s not a normal feline, is it?”

Barton Lucia seemed to have some knowledge of paranormal things, and the longer I spent with him, the more of a sense I got of his heritage. Not just wizard, but Benandanti, the cursed order of monks. Interesting. He must be a descendant or something.

“It’s a grimalkin. He only looks like a cat.”

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” He held out a hand, and Raleigh sniffed it, then hesitated and turned his back on Barton. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“After that welcome, I wouldn’t be surprised. But no…he would have hissed or growled. He just doesn’t find you worthy of notice.”

“He’s definitely cat-like.”

Then Raleigh’s ears perked up, and he jumped off my lap, but he disappeared before he landed on the floor.

“What? Where did he go?”

I stood. “I believe your patient has woken up. Perhaps we should go talk to him.”

He rose as well and gestured for me to precede him from the room. “After you. By the way, please call me Barton.”

I sighed, but I replied, “And you may address me as Reine. While we walk, you can tell me where, exactly, I am.”