Will carried Tailtiu in and laid her on the divan in the parlor. Then he glanced at Blake. The man was sitting on the floor, a pained expression on his face. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“I tried to go with them,” said Blake, seeming embarrassed. “But my body betrayed me this time. I kept up until we were halfway there, then I fell.”
Will knelt and began examining the man’s leg.
“I think it’s just a sprain or something,” said Blake. “But I couldn’t walk on it, though the gods know I tried. I finally had to improvise a crutch and hobble back here. Took me a little over an hour and by the time I got back… well, you saw the front door.”
The bones seemed sound, but Will could see that there was considerable swelling around Blake’s ankle, though it was masked by the boot he still wore. “I think it’s your ankle,” he informed Blake. “But you should have taken off the boot. Now I’m afraid you’re going to lose it.”
“The foot?” asked Blake sharply, his face lighting up in alarm.
Will smirked faintly, feeling sad and relieved at the same time. “The boot. I’ll have to cut it off.” If only Janice’s wound had been so simple. He did as he had said, using a sharp knife to carefully slice the boot away, exposing the swollen ankle inside. Blake hissed in pain several times during the process, then louder when Will began rotating his foot and probing the swelling. “I really can’t be sure, but I don’t think you broke anything. A few days of rest and elevation should see you back on your feet.”
“Damned rotten timing,” swore the manservant.
“You can’t stay here, either,” Will informed him. “They may return, and I won’t be here to protect you.”
“Where are the others?” asked Blake.
Will grimaced, then looked away. It was difficult to say, but he managed to communicate the injuries they had endured using the bare minimum of words. “It was my fault, Blake,” he said at last. “I’m grateful you twisted your ankle, or you’d be in the same shape, or dead. I still don’t know what happened to Rob.”
“Worrying about blame right now is a fool’s game,” said Blake. “The only one to blame when your friends are hurt is the enemy that did it. Blaming yourself does your enemy’s work for him.” He paused for a second. “You said you weren’t going to be here. Where are you going?”
“Tiny and Janice need a miracle,” said Will. “So I’m going to go find one for them. I also need to return my friend to her family.”
Blake had never actually met Tailtiu as herself. She had always been disguised as Selene. “Is she…?”
Will nodded. “She’s been helping me with things. Now I have to explain her death to her mother.”
“Are you sure she’s dead?” asked Blake, an odd sound in his throat. “I could swear she’s looking at us.”
Will whipped around, and sure enough he could see a faint glimmer in the dim light. One of Tailtiu’s eyes was open and appeared to be fixed on him. He moved over and knelt beside her. “Are you still with us?” he asked, touching her cheek.
Her lips moved slightly, then she closed the eye, causing his hope to soar. She’s alive! He turned back to Blake. “Can you make it to the Healing and Psyche building by yourself? I need to take her home, right now.”
Blake nodded. “I’m coming back in the morning, though. The workmen will be arriving to start on the changes you wanted. I’ll see about repairing whatever they broke while they were tearing through the house as well.”
Will hardly heard the man. He was lifting his aunt again and heading out the door. Looking back, he said, “I’ll be back in a day or two. Any longer than that and there’s a good chance I won’t be back at all.” He strode out the door and down the steps without answering any of Blake’s follow up questions.
After a hundred yards, he summoned the limnthal and asked Arrogan a question. “Tailtiu is alive, barely. I’m carrying her to the nearest congruence point. Should I give her a blood-cleanse potion? Can she catch the vampiric sickness?”
For once the ring didn’t waste any time insulting him. “No and no. No, the fae can’t contract it, and no don’t ever give her a blood-cleanse potion. If she was healthy it would probably make her feel sick, but if she’s as badly injured as you suggest it might finish her off.”
“Why is that?” asked Will.
“She isn’t human. The blood-cleanse potion is formulated to destroy things that are foreign to the human body. As far as the potion is concerned, she is a disease.”
That got Will to thinking. “Is that true of all non-humans?”
“Most of them, except those that are most similar to us, like dwarves and elves. They’re related closely enough that it would work fine.”
“Related?” Will had thought they were entirely separate from humanity.
“If you saw a horse and a donkey you would assume they were related, wouldn’t you? You can even breed them together. The same is true of elves and dwarves.”
“But you told me the elves live in a different world, didn’t you?”
“They’re still related to us. Just because we live in different realms now doesn’t mean that was always the case. Think about the fae, you already know they were once human too.”
“Except they can’t use the blood-cleanse potion,” argued Will.
“Because their bodies have been completely replaced by the essence of Faerie. They’re no more human than a well-made marble statue. See the difference?”
“You were wrong about one thing, though,” said Will. “I found Tailtiu in the astral plane.”
“Ridiculous. That simply isn’t possible.”
“She has feelings,” declared Will.
“Next you’ll be telling me you found a dog that can talk. What do you think you connected with?”
“Pain,” said Will. “I couldn’t find her at first, but I kept trying. Then I sort of went inward and found this bit of pain inside myself. After that I found her, and something connected.” He paused for a second, unsure how to convey what he had felt. “It was strange. It was almost as though she didn’t care at first, but once my pain connected to hers, she started trying to scream. Do you know what it means?”
“Not a clue, other than that it shouldn’t be possible,” said the ring. “I’ll be curious to hear what she has to say about it after she’s recovered.”
“She will recover?” asked Will once again, seeking reassurance.