Otherbound (33 page)

He tapped the wall, turned, kicked harder. They needed to know why the ministers needed Cilla alive. Nolan wanted to do something, move forward, to act now that he finally
could
—but if anyone could think this through, it should be him. Amara might be the planner, but Nolan had all the time in the world.

Could keeping a fake princess alive to kill her at a later time be a blow to the rebels' morale? No. Too much setup, not enough payoff, and what was the role of the mages tracking her?

Maybe, once the ministers were too old, they'd need someone new to possess, and a fake princess could take over the
Dunelands without suspicion? No. Lots of ministers, just one girl, and they'd want mage bodies, besides.

Nolan needed to stop thinking about the princess aspect. Ruudde had said that'd only been a ruse to keep Cilla safe and hidden, for whatever reason, and maybe he'd told the truth.

Nolan wasn't used to thinking these things through without his notebook. He'd never been able to focus long enough. Now, despite the blinding lightness of the pool around him, all bleached blue and green, wet skin everywhere he looked, chlorine in his nose—yes, he could focus.

But it got him nowhere.

Start from scratch: if the ministers wanted to protect Cilla so badly, she had to be useful to them. (But how? She spent her days hiding in decrepit granaries.)

Look at it from the other side. Forget keeping her alive. What were the consequences to her death? If she died, the curse ended, and …

Nolan paused by the side of the pool. He clung to the edge with one hand. Maybe it wasn't just the curse that would end. There could be a second spell. If Ruudde hadn't been one of the mages to place the curse, and hadn't had an anchor to track—Amara and Cilla had gotten rid of all their clothes and possessions on Olym's boat—how had he found Cilla so quickly? He couldn't have known she was coming, and she would have stayed out of sight. Yet somehow, he'd found her within minutes.

If Ruudde and Jorn had cast a second spell, that could explain how they'd tracked her. It'd explain why they needed to keep her alive—to keep that other spell active. It'd explain why the knifewielder and other mages wanted her dead—not because she was the princess, but to end that other spell. It'd explain something else, too: Amara had always thought those mages had screwed up by casting a curse instead of a death spell. What if they hadn't? What if they'd tried a death spell, and it had mixed with an existing spell, diluting it, warping it?

That worked. All of it worked. Cilla might not matter beyond being a host for their spell. Nolan itched to get out of the pool, dry off, and find his journals, but he made himself slow down. He was still missing one thing. What the hell
was
that second spell?

He wiped some water from his face. At least he had a theory. He ought to tell Amara. He'd been checking in every few minutes—

—and now she was pressing her face to the bars. Cold metal chilled her cheeks. A marshal was running her way, a gaunt woman with skin like birch wood, one of the few Elig Amara had seen in the palace. Keys clattered against the woman's side.

“She hurt herself.” The marshal fumbled to get the key into the lock. “You need to get in there—”

—someone's hand was on his shoulder. When Nolan turned, the lifeguard crouched nearby. “Are you all right?” she asked. Stray locks of hair drooped free from her ponytail. The
lifeguards all knew about him. His seizures happened too often to take chances. “Do you need your crutches?”

“I'm good. Taking a breather.” Nolan offered an automatic smile, but— “Wait. I do need my crutches. Please.” While the lifeguard went to get them, Nolan pulled off his goggles and hoisted himself onto the edge—

—heard Cilla's breathing rasp in and out.

Amara bolted after the marshal into Cilla's cell. The walls swayed. Stones were shifting, reaching out. Cilla lay on the cot with her back to the bars. Her topscarf lay on the floor. It tangled under Amara's feet, and she landed by Cilla's mattress in a dive. She grabbed a bare shoulder and turned Cilla onto her back. The red caught her eye first: flecks on Cilla's nails, hands, a line that stretched across her chest. Her tattoo pulsed faintly on both sides of that line.

She'd scratched it open.

Cilla looked up with eyes that were red, too. “Don't,” she pleaded—

—Nolan needed to hurry. He unfastened the flipper from his stump. The lifeguard was already there with his crutches, the anti-slip tips still attached. Bringing his prosthesis to the pool was useless; he'd only damage it, and hopping was dangerous as hell on these tiles.

He grabbed the crutches and swung his way to the changing rooms as fast as he could without risking a fall. People
pretended not to stare, and he ignored them, because he only needed another second, just a little more—finally he thumped onto a private changing-room bench. His crutches slammed into the door. He buried himself in Amara's world and prayed he wasn't too late—

“—here! Pressure!” Amara kept her signs short and pressed her hands back to the wound to gather more blood, though it was already on her face and arms and even her throat. She had a good view of the wound now, and it wasn't just one scratch—she counted at least half a dozen in every direction, like the starry spikes that surrounded the volcano in Cilla's tattoo. Most of the scratches didn't go deeply enough to draw blood—Cilla's nails were too short for that. She must've gone over the scratch again and again and again.

Amara took Cilla's blood-stained hands, but Cilla shook her head, tried to pull them back. The marshal forced her still, and Amara smeared Cilla's bloody hands clean on the bed's blanket. She couldn't remove all the blood with the stones already eagerly scraping away from the walls or with Cilla fighting like this—and in the names of the dead, she shouldn't be
fighting
!—but she removed the worst of it. It'd have to be enough.
Oh, please, let it be enough
.

Amara wadded up the blanket. She shoved it at the marshal, who pressed it against Cilla's chest and held it there.

Footsteps rang down the hall.

Amara stumbled away from the bed. The smell of copper was in her nose and everywhere else. Normally, she didn't smear the blood on her face. Normally, Cilla's injuries were minor.

A ripple went through the wall. The stones shifted their attention—

—Nolan didn't want to see this. He wanted to feel it even less. His eyes opened with a start. He rolled from the bench before he realized it and grunted as his head hit the wall. The dressing room was well-lit, bright and yellow and safe.

He didn't want to go back—

—he went back and the floor was dragging Amara in. The stones crushed her body bloody and broke her bones and it took too long to end.

Nolan stayed for all of it; she'd heal faster if he did.

By the time the curse faded, Jorn and Gacco had arrived. Amara lay there, her chest rising and falling. Broken ribs stabbed her lungs. She felt them twist, gathering shattered pieces to mend. There were no pauses, no stutters. She healed the way she'd always thought a real mage ought to.

“What do we do with them?” the Elig marshal asked. From where Amara lay, curled up and facing the wall, she could just see everyone huddled near the mattress. The marshal still pressed the blanket to Cilla's chest. She was bloody, too. At first, Nolan thought the blood was Cilla's, but when Amara's gaze lingered, he realized the red lines standing out on the marshal's skin weren't smears but scratches. Cilla had fought her.

She'd given up now, though. Her head lay flat on the pillow, staring at Amara.

“I'm sorry.” Cilla barely moved as she spoke. The marshal was still holding her down. “I didn't mean for … you weren't supposed to …”

“Keep the pressure on.” Jorn stepped sideways, blocking Amara's view of Cilla. “How deep were the scratches?”

Amara's head lolled sideways. Watching took too much effort. She couldn't think through the pain. Her jaw repaired itself, bone grinding against bone. The noise echoed in her ears and skull.

Amara drifted out, leaving Nolan alone with the sound of gnashing bones. Injuries like these took a long time to heal, even now that he wasn't blinking back and forth. Vaguely, beyond Jorn's voice, he heard a familiar choked sound. Gacco. Throwing up in the hall.

This isn't my body
, Nolan told himself.
This isn't my pain
.

It didn't make it hurt any less, but he repeated the words, anyway.

By the time Amara awoke, her bones had mended. Muscles shifted under her skin, following suit. She dragged her arm out from underneath her until both hands rested in the space between her drawn-up knees and head. Her hands were still bloody, the skin and veins damaged, but the tendons and muscles worked.

What was Amara doing? The pain scrambled her thoughts, making them hard for Nolan to pick out.

“Go away,” she signed. “Healed enough go away.”

Nolan had promised to leave when asked. But—right now, with her body still torn open? Was she thinking clearly?

“Plan,” she said. “Go before too late. Plan.” She rolled onto her back, letting her arm thump to the side. She wouldn't be able to sign anymore without the others noticing. Jorn and the Elig marshal faced away from her, but Jorn was looking back every now and then, and Gacco had returned as well, his skin a queasy shade of gray-brown.

Nolan drew back.

elp,” Amara signed, hoping to catch Gacco's eye. From where she lay on the floor, she saw him slanted and upside down. “Left. He left.”

Gacco frowned but didn't move.

Of course. Gacco wouldn't know about Nolan. Amara needed to think. Her mind felt full. Torn in every direction. “Stopped healing. Help,” she repeated.

“Hey, Jorn?” Gacco said. “The girl says she stopped healing.”

Jorn looked over his shoulder irritably, then back at Cilla, who lay motionless. Amara could just about see him think:
Nolan. That asshole.

“I can put her in her cell and bring the doctor,” Gacco said.

Amara worked up a shudder. She coughed. Blood shot into her mouth and sprayed onto the floor. Must've been left in her lungs. Her hand crept to her chest and pressed on her heart.

She was fine, at least on the inside. Jorn and the marshals only saw the outside, which looked bloody and bruised, with her skin torn and her wear unrecognizable as ever having been clothing. The outside looked as if she could die at any moment. She needed it to. Without the threat of death, Jorn
might simply stick her in her cell and wait for Nolan to fix her.

Jorn cursed under his breath. “Take her to the doctor.”

“Should I call another marshal to—”

“That'll take too long. She's harmless. Take her!”

Ruudde's voice echoed in Amara's mind:
Her, we can control.

Gacco was by Amara's side in two steps. He crouched. One hand went under her knees, the other under her shoulders, the same way Jorn had carried her off the dunes and into the pub so long ago. Back then, she hadn't known Nolan was in control or that he was the one to heal her. She'd thought she was a mage. Maart had been alive. She hadn't run away. And, unlike now, she really had been dying. She'd been panicked and frightened and hurting like hell.

This time, she was angry.

She faked another spasm. She needed Gacco more worried about the possibility of her death than the possibility of her escape.