Page 105 of The Stone Secret
I tried to sit up again and failed. Again. “Gah!” Tears of frustration burned my eyes. I looked to Chlobe. “I know some concoctions. Willowman showed me. I just need the right herbs to get me on my feet, then I can help Derek.”
Levi’s eyes lit up with hope, and it fueled my determination. “What herbs do you need? I can—”
There was a sharp rap on the door. “Hey! Open up.”
“Touron?” I struggled to sit up and managed to brace myself on my elbows this time.
Another knock. “Cameron?”
Levi sighed in exasperation and let them in.
Touron and Curi pushed past him into the room.
“You had no right to run off with her like that,” Curi growled at Levi.
“And you locked the door!” Touron said in disgust. “Are you that desperate for alone time with her that you’d use her injury to get it?”
Twin spots of color bloomed high on Levi’s cheeks, his lips pressing into a thin line.
“Actually, Mr. Halle was following protocol,” Chlobe said. “Wraith touch can, in some goyles, act like a mystical infection and be passed on to others. We had to isolate Miss Basque and test her saliva. She’s clean for infection.”
But Levi had touched me. “You could have been infected.”
“Yes. But as your tutor for this exercise, it was my responsibility to make sure not only you, but everyone else was safe.”
“Well, that explains why you yelled at us not to touch her,” Curi muttered before turning his attention to me. “And you…What the fuck were you thinking running off like that?”
“They wanted me, I was trying to—”
“Sacrifice yourself. Yeah, we get it, but we’re a team. We protect each other.” His dark eyes gleamed with passion. “We could have held them off together somehow until Levi got there.”
“Or until Hawke decided to pull out his golden sword,” Touron said. “What was that?”
“None of our concern,” Levi said.
Touron looked like he was about to argue but thought better of it. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Those wraiths…” He shook his head. “That was bad.”
My mind whirred, going over the final moments of the wraith attack. There’d been something different. Something strange. Oh gods. “Red stuff!”
“What?” Levi asked.
“Red stuff came out of me. Like…red power, and it went through Derek and attacked the wraiths.”
Levi looked over to Curi and Touron, who both shook their heads, seemingly confused.
“You didn’t see it?”
“No,” Curi said. “I was there the whole time, trying to get close to you. I didn’t see any red power.”
“You were under attack,” Levi said. “The mind can play tricks.”
“No, I felt it…saw it. I was tapped out, and then this other power…”
The skepticism on their faces spawned shadows of doubt in my mind. Maybe I had imagined it. The wraith’s touch could have fucked with my head. “How’s Derek now? Did you see him?”
“Don’t know,” Curi said. “We left him with Yarrow at the dorm. Shar and the twins are with him.”
“It looked…bad,” Touron said.
