CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

DOMINIC AWOKE IN THE FIRST CHILL half-light of dawn. Dew had settled heavily over the deck and his blanket. He was damp, stiff and cold. He eased himself up with a grimace. Matthieu lay curled in the spot beside him, burrowed under his cover. Dominic shook off his blanket and tucked it over top of his son. Not that he’d sleep much longer—once the sun rode free of the horizon and lit up the yellow sails, they would all be awake.

All didn’t look to be very many, though. Only Yolenka was still on the deck. Féolan’s and Derkh’s rumpled blankets lay empty. Maybe they had awakened early as well. He hoped by all that was holy they had not taken ill. What if the captain had been right and the Gray Veil spread throughout the ship?

He needed to check on Madeleine. The captain frowned on anyone entering the cabin, but Dominic was her father. He would at least stick his head in the door and find out how she fared.

EVEN IN HER SLEEP Madeleine knew that the tide had turned. The trembling and twitching of her limbs first eased and then stopped altogether. The racy skip of her heart steadied. The pounding in her head, the aches that racked her body, above all the terrible weakness that made every breath an effort and sapped her will—they weren’t gone, but they were fading. It was as though she had been trapped on a sled, rushing down a long snowy slope toward a pool so deep and icy she would sink into it like a stone and never rise again. And then someone pulled the hand brake on the sled, and it slowed, groaning and complaining from the strain but slowing nonetheless, and came to rest at the edge of the pool.

And now she was making the long climb back up the hill. With every step her body felt a little stronger and more at ease. All except her throat. That pain was constant. For nearly two days she had been unable to swallow, the muscles in her tongue weak and useless. Drool had spilled down her front during that endless pounding horse journey, and she had been too sick to care. Later her spit had dried in her mouth and her lips had grown cracked and parched. And none of it—not the pain, not the paralysis—was as bad as the revulsion. She could not escape having to feel and taste the alien thing that lay in her mouth. Her tongue knew its leathery tough skin, the sickening press of its swelling growth.

Now, for the first time, the pain of the accidental press of her tongue against the membrane was blunted. “Fingernails or knives?” she and Matthieu used to ask each other, rating the ferocity of some childish hurt. In the pain department, she was heading back toward fingernails.

Yet the irritation of it was worse. The Veil hung in her throat, rattling and flapping with each breath like a heavy wet curtain. It brushed the back of her tongue, and she gagged on it, blocking her own air. Then she couldn’t stop gagging, her body trying uselessly to eject it like a rotten chunk of meat. She struggled up from sleep in a panic.

Patience, dear one. Soon you will be free of it. The words floated into her mind, soothing as a mother’s touch. Her throat relaxed and opened and her breath came a little easier. Her eyelids fluttered and closed, and she slept again.

ALMOST DONE. The temptation to rush pricked at her, but Gabrielle resisted. If the seal did not hold, if the poison found some minute overlooked channel to escape through, that tiny outlet could burst open under the pressure when the Veil was removed and throw everything into jeopardy. Gabrielle’s mind hovered over that word, everything, and she pulled it away. Don’t think about what’s at stake, she told herself. Think about the work.

Madeleine was restless under her hand, her sleep becoming lighter as her strength returned. The membrane was no longer embedded firmly against her throat but hung by mere threads, obstructing her airway even more than before.

Suddenly the girl choked and gagged. Gabrielle felt the fear course through her, the panic to draw air, the reflex in her throat working against her. She touched Madeleine’s mind, spoke soothingly to her. Sent her light to the back of the tongue, let it fall away from the flap that brushed at it and lie flat against the jaw. Air flowed back into Madeleine’s lungs, and she sighed and settled back.

“Gabrielle!”

Derkh’s voice was sharp, the hand that shook her rough. “Gabrielle, wake up!”

“What is it?” Gabrielle struggled to focus her eyes, to bring her mind back to the world. Being jerked out of her healing trance was always difficult and disorienting. And tonight—this morning, rather, to judge by the thin light seeping in the cabin’s tiny windows—she was slow with fatigue. It waited for her like a silent vulture, ready to float down and take her. She shook her head, fighting it off. There was only one reason Derkh would interrupt her.

“Féolan?”

Derkh nodded, his eyes black and staring. “He can’t breathe. Gabrielle, I think he’s dying.”

She flew to Féolan’s bedside, not even aware of having risen. Behind her, Madeleine coughed and gagged, choking again. Gabrielle glanced back, agonized. Not both at once, she prayed. I can’t.

Madeleine was up on one elbow, her shoulders heaving. A retching tearing cough shook her, and she spat a dark mass onto the towel. A sound of pure revulsion escaped her. And then she looked to Gabrielle, still frozen at Féolan’s bedside.

“I’m okay. Look after him.”

FÉOLAN FOUGHT TO draw air with everything he had. The thrashing of his legs and hands was worse than useless, draining what stores he had, yet he was powerless to stop it. Already his lips and fingers tingled, starving for breath. For hours now he had survived on small whistling passageways through the swollen mass of his throat, using what skill he had to ease open the tissues around them and sip miserly streams of air. Now he was in the desert, the tiniest streams vanished in a solid wall of sand. He was dying, and he knew it.

Gabrielle’s presence swept into him like the sun sailing out from behind black clouds. She was too late, he was certain—but, oh, how lovely to feel her near him once more. He was so sorry for the grief she would suffer and so grateful to be with her at his life’s end.

The warm light blasted into his throat, shoving at the swollen edges of tissue so that he could feel the sudden give, the rush of air into his grateful lungs. Then the flap closed again.

One more, Féolan. Her voice in his head, scared but firm. Commanding him. I’m going to push it back again. Breathe deep, love, deep as you can. Again the light rushed against the swelling, and Féolan thought, ridiculously, of a mountain ram, crashing headlong against his opponent to claim his ewe. My stubborn Human, he thought, and then cast thought aside and sucked at the glorious air like a greedy baby, as deep into his lungs as he could.

And then she was gone from him, and he was back in the desert, stumbling into the eternal night.