I move my head to see a flash of something silver that lashes out from inside the tower. A blur, it’s so fast. All I know is Boone grunts, and then he’s in the air.
His face contorts with shock as he wheels his arms, and I reach out a futile hand for him, grasping nothing as he falls away.
“No!” I think I scream it as I watch him drop.
Hands at my shoulders shake me. “Lyra!”
But I don’t wake up. I’m still caught in the nightmare.
“No!” I scream as I watch him drop.
It feels like time has slowed and the fall takes a lifetime.
Boone’s horrified eyes never leave my face, even when he hits the spikes.
“Lyra!” Another rough shake yanks me out of the nightmare, and I’m back in the here and now. My own harsh breathing rasps in and out, with sharp pants as the horror of that moment ebbs.
“Boone,” I whimper.
“Lyra?” Hades’ voice is coming from a long way away.
I frown. I know I’m awake now. Where am I? In my room, asleep?
No, not there.
But my eyes won’t open, like sandbags are holding them down.
“You’re going to feel a prick,” his voice tells me through the darkness and confusion and fuzzy sort of awareness I’m trying to navigate.
There’s a tiny sting in my arm, followed by a wave of pain, as if that prick reminded all the other nerves in my body to wake up, too. My side aches dully but horribly, and the rest of my body… “Ouch.”
“Are you in pain?” Hades asks me, I think. Then, “Why is she in pain?” demanded in a very different voice, hopefully to someone else.
“Mmm…hot.” Why am I so hot? I’m sweating so much, my body feels sticky, and my hair is soaked.
A cool cloth presses against my face. “I know,” Hades says. “You have an infection, and it’s causing a fever.”
Infection? From what?
I must ask that, because Hades answers. “The thing that pushed Boone off that wall must’ve gone past you to do it.”
The thing that…
Boone.
It’s real. It wasn’t a nightmare. He’s dead. Tears leak out of my still-closed eyes even while I’m trying to hold them back. “No, no, no.” The words are slurred, and I try to curl up into a ball.
But those hands are at my shoulders again and won’t let me. “Don’t move, love. You’ll tear your stitches, and you’re all wrapped up in wires.”
Wires. Stitches. Because I got hurt.
I remember now. The blood. The pain. Hades in a panic.
I force my eyes open and find a bleary view of the underside of a heavily stubbled jaw. “You…need…a shave.”
“What did she say?” another voice in the room asks.
I frown and reach up to tickle his chin. “Do…gods…shave?”
Hades lowers his head to inspect me, brows practically meeting over his eyes, and I stare back in misery. “She’s delirious.”
“Says who?” I demand. Or try to.
Gray eyes crinkle at the corners, and he shakes his head. “If gods could be killed, you’d be the death of me, my star.”
“I like it when you call me that.” Did I say that out loud?
The frown is back. I guess I did. “She’s definitely delirious,” he says.
Am I? I actually feel better. Just the sight of him helps. I sink into my pillow and keep my gaze trained on his face. And then the memories come following on the heels of the weight of exhaustion. “We can…save him?” I mumble.
That was real, wasn’t it? If I win, Hades can save Boone?
He lets go of my shoulders, taking my hand in his and pressing his lips to my knuckles. But he doesn’t quite look at me. “Sure. But first, we need you to get better.”
Why does that sound off?
Sleep is dragging me back under again, heavier and heavier and heavier. “We need…to save…Boone.”
