Page 61 of Tik-Tok

Where was North? He took a single step forward and caught sight of Echo’s pale face. The relief that it wasn’t North was short lived as the realization hit—Echo was badly injured. If not dead already.

Cyrx lifted his head, dark eyes wild, and caught sight of Tik-Tok and Respen. “Captain! Thank the mother!”

Respen shoved his way through the brownies and slid to his knees. “Echo!”

“Shit,” Dax said under his breath. He glanced at Respen, still leaning over her body, and met his gaze. “I can’t fix this.”

Tik-Tok’s chest grew tight, each inhale a struggle, and his feet refused to move. He’d seen his siblings die up close—he couldn’t watch his friend potentially do the same. “What happened?”

“Got everything!” North shouted from the stairwell.

His head snapped toward the sound of her voice. North burst from the door leading below deck and stumbled across the rocking ship with an armful of towels. Blood stained her skirts and exposed forearms. When her gaze locked with Tik-Tok’s, she gasped. “Thank the gods you’re back.”

“What happened?” he asked again in a rough voice.

North ignored him, going instead toward the form between Dax and Cyrx, and dropped to her knees. Dax scrambled backward, his entire front soaked in blood, so she could apply pressure to the wound with a cloth.

“Echo!” The rawness in Respen’s voice rattled Tik-Tok to his very core.

“I’m sorry, Res,” Dax said in a gravelly voice. “I don’t know what else to do.”

North lifted her stare from the stained towel in her hands. “She’s with child.”

A desperate wail left Respen. The hair on Tik-Tok’s arm stood on end. Echo was with child? With a wound like that… His stomach twisted.

“You have to risk taking her to land,” Cyrx told him.

And it was a risk. Respen’s power could potentially make her wound worse, but it wouldn’t improve by waiting until the ship arrived at a port. How skilled were the healers here? Without magic… Tik-Tok didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Echo was bleeding out. There was too much blood for her to survive whatever injury she’d suffered. He swallowed hard and turned his gaze to North.

As if sensing his stare, she looked up. Her eyes were dilated, and dried tears stained her cheeks, with more threatening to fall. “Salt followed us through the portal, but something destroyed his ship.”

If Tik-Tok thought, even for a moment, that Salt would’ve followed through the portal, he never would’ve left. The ass was somehow both fearless and superstitious. Crossing into other worlds wouldanger the gods, or so he’d claimed. He swallowed hard.

“Destroyed by what?” he asked.

“Whatever is in the water. It attacked, and Echo dove in to save us and…” The ship gave another violent jerk. “We have to go back to Oz before it sinks us.”

The first squelching sounded.Fuck. He ran to the helm and grabbed the spokes of the wheel. “Dax, wind!”

A large gust slammed into the sails, jerking the ship forward, toward the swirling vortex of the portal. The masts creaked against the force, the sails snapping as the wind caught at different angles. The spinning water swept them up, dragged them closer, swallowed them whole. Tik-Tok’s stomach lurched with the rapid movement despite the years he’d spent on the water. Cyrx had braced Respen and Echo, keeping them from sliding across the slippery deck, while Dax held onto a mast and North caught herself on a rope. Kaliko and dozens of brownies skidded across the deck, some bouncing off the railing before sliding the other way as the ship twisted in the current.

“Hold onto something!” But the roar of the portal drowned out Tik-Tok’s shout.

A moment later, the portal spat them back out. With a blue sky overhead, glittering silver waves below, and a gentle sea breeze, they were home. It was over in a single breath, but left Tik-Tok winded and disoriented. Once he regained his senses, a quick headcount told him that three brownies were missing. “Fae overboard!” he yelled, abandoning the helm. Dax continued with his wind, blowing them away from the portal, while Cyrx sprinted to the side of the ship, looking for their lost crewmembers.

“They’re gone, Captain,” Cyrx called. “No sign of them anywhere.”

Of course they were—the portal was still wide open. There was no way the brownies could swim against the current. A heavy pang hit his chest as he realized Cyrx was right—they weregone. But if he let himself dwell, let himself mourn their loss…No.He had to focus. Other lives still depended on him.

Jolting to North, he hauled her up from the deck by her upper arms. “Close the portal.” There was no warmth in his voice, though he hadn’t intended to sound so callous. He had to act likeCaptainTik-Tok now, not their friend. Had to take charge and leave no room for questions about his orders. That’s what kept things running smoothly in a crisis. He whirled away from North to return to the helm. With a quick glance at his compass, its needle pointing him in the direction of the nearest land, he spun the wheel to the left. “More wind!”

Dax rotated his hands through the air, churning the breeze into something stronger, and used it to fill the sails, sendingThe Temptresssoaring over the silver sea. Behind them, there was no trace of the portal.

“I’m taking her to the Isle of Phreex,” Respen yelled, his voice cracking with fear as he scooped Echo off the floor. Blood dripped freely from her abdomen, joining the pool already on the deck. “They can help her there.”

Tik-Tok checked his compass again, adjusting slightly in favor of the right isle. “We’ll meet you there as soon as we can,” he promised.

Then Echo and Respen disappeared as he whirled her toward a healer.

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