Page 106 of Tell No Tales
Vadim said the words to Hugo, but his gaze never dropped from Klaus's.
"I will always want to be with you."Klaus couldn't keep the words from his thoughts, but if Vadim heard him, they had no effect.
Chapter 26
Vadim
Vadim hadn't had the power to heal Klaus's affliction, but he recognized the same healer's calling card. "Did you recognize Martiz?" he asked Hugo.
"The old man?"
"He looks old, now," Vadim said. He'd aged twenty years in the last two weeks since Vadim had removed his healing ability. "He would have been dressed in a naval medic's uniform when you were a boy, or maybe as a merchant or pirate?" Martiz had left Aquarion often, always on clandestine trips with a ship and crew out of Glamiere that showed up without warning. He then would return on merchant ships from Hearthstone. Once, he stowed away in the hold without them knowing when they refused him passage. He was lucky they hadn't found him and thrown him overboard. Five of the crew had come down with a mystery illness and died. Vadim now assumed Martiz had caused their illnesses.
"He had a knife." Hugo shivered. "That is the same man. He cut me open and threatened to tell Mom and Dad if I didn't do what he asked."
"What did he ask?" Klaus leaned forward. "I was too out of it to remember."
At first, Hugo had jumped as though startled by Klaus, but he frowned up at him with dawning realization. They were both victims of the same man, someone who had called himself a healer while inflicting them both with a horrible disease that would kill them faster over time, the more healing they received.
"He told me to call fire, and then he drained it away, into the dagger."
How would that work, Vadim wondered? Martiz couldn't hold fire magic, so where did it go?
"The dagger is more than a drain,"Klaus said inside his head. "It's a battery."
"He holds power in the dagger?" Vadim frowned. "Even enchanters must use the power they hold before it starts to eat them alive." The dagger was made from the stone that allowed them to transfer power. "It must be another of the stone's properties."
"Then he cuts someone mundane and fills them with what he drained." Klaus gripped his own shoulders in a tight hug. "He may not have known he was spreading the disease."
"He knew," Vadim said. "He tried to give it to me." Vadim's headaches had been horrible at first, when he didn't have any residual healing to combat them. "He must have known my healing power would come back."
"I haven't been able to call fire on my own since," Hugo said. "There's something … wrong with it."
"Let's see if we can fix it, shall we?" Vadim attempted a bright smile, but if the fear written all over Hugo's face as he lay back on the mattress was any indication, he'd failed spectacularly.
He was right, though. His power was drawn to the spell winding its way through Hugo's blood the same way it was drawn to Coryn's life force, since he'd drained her before. This disease was familiar to him, and he not only saw how to heal Hugo but also to protect him from future damage the same way Niall had protected Klaus.
Klaus followed his every movement with interest. When he was finished, their gazes locked, and Vadim realized he was wrong. It wasn't his power alone that had aided him in finding and curing the disease. The cure was in Klaus's blood, too, and they were bound.
"You healed him," Klaus said. "His aura is stronger now."
"We healed him."
Together, they pulled Hugo to his feet. Hugo leaned heavily against Vadim, but Vadim refused to pick him up. Hugo was exhausted from the healing, yes, but he could make it down the stairs to the courtyard, and from there, one of the twins could hoist them onto the air ship.
They sneaked past a few more mundane servants to the service door. The ship was not in the air, however, and Nola and the others were nowhere to be seen.
"This way." Vadim led the way to the tunnel. It was empty again, though the students should have been dismissed from their classes by now.
"I don't like this," Klaus said. "Where are Nola and the others?"
"You're the seeker," Hugo snipped.
"Don't be a brat," Vadim said.
Hugo's eyes welled with tears and his bottom lip quivered, all from one reprimand.
"He's right," Klaus said, pointing. "I panicked. They're at the top of the tower."
