The Silenced Tale, стр. 117
My heart aches to read of it, and I put my phone away.
“I’ve called my parents,” Pip says into the beeping silence of the hospital room. “They’re going to come here for a few weeks, while we all get healthy enough to travel. I’ve already arranged a room for them, and Bevel can take the spare one in our suite that was for . . . uh . . .” She trails off and swallows hard, the sound shaky. She turns away and dashes at her eyes.
“That’s extravagant,” I say. “Two flights and an extra room?”
Pip shrugs. “The con’s insurance is paying for it. Though I have no idea how it all got pushed through so quickly.”
I grin sharkishly and waggle my phone. “None, bao bei?”
Pip returns my grin, though hers is a little more wilted around the edges. “None.”
We lapse back into silence after that, and Pip shuffles her chair a little closer to mine, so that she can rest her head on my shoulder. I carefully lift an arm and wrap it around her, drawing her close and reveling in the scent of her skin, the heat of her cheek through my shirt, the soft warm puffs of breath against my collarbone. “I miss Alis,” she whispers.
“Me, too. But I’m glad she wasn’t here.”
“Me, too.” Pip drops a peck on my neck.
“You don’t have to stay,” Bevel says, without looking up. “I can mark the vigil alone.”
Pip and I exchange a glance and sit up.
“Do you want to be alone?” Pip asks.
“Yes,” Bevel says, but he sounds uncertain. “No? I just—I feel useless.”
“What would you prefer we were doing?” Pip asks, gently, and it’s not meant as a challenge or an unkindness. She honestly wants to help him.
“Magic,” Bevel says. “Why couldn’t you have cured him before you—?” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “No, I know. Just getting rid of it was the clever thing, but I just . . .”
I understand his frustration, and anger. It is justified. I know Pip is wracked with guilt over the fact that she was so focused on keeping the magic away from the Viceroy that she didn’t stop to consider that she could do more for Kintyre, not until it was rushing past her and she had just enough presence of mind to snatch a tendril out of the air, to claw back just a little.
“He will live,” Pip says. “And he will be fine. All the doctors say so.” She leans forward and lays a hand on Bevel’s shoulder, aiming for comfort, but he jerks out from under her touch.
Pip sighs, not hurt by the rebuff, and sits back again.
“Perhaps we may try an experiment?” I suggest. “Pip, can you fetch that pen on the doctor’s chart? And some scrap paper, if anyone can find some.”
We cannot. We search for a few moments, and Pip suggests we ask the nurse for some. But then I remember what I shoved into the bag with my bloodied clothes and the Shadow’s Mask: the paper that Elgar used to summon Bevel and Kintyre into the Overrealm.
“Wait. I have some,” I say. I pull the wad of crumpled paper out. Carefully, I smooth it out on the end of the bed. It reads:
The Reader had the magic of the Viceroy inscribed on her bones, in her muscles, in her flesh. And while only the power of the Deal-Maker Spirits could rip a portal through the veil of the skies, the Viceroy was descended of one of the strongest; the weather witch who was his mother. His magic was Deal-Maker strong, and so were all the spells he had ever woven. He was a warlock in full possession of all the magic afforded to him by study and blood alike. That strength, that power, lived on in the corporeal essence of the Reader. Her husband could draw upon it—and so, too, could his maker, when he touched the Reader.
And so it was that the Writer placed his hand on the bare flesh of the Reader, cupping his palm over her scars and leeching the magic still held dormant there, releasing it, tapping it. And with that magic, that power, the Writer did what only a Deal-Maker had been able, in the past, to do.
He reached through the veil of the skies and pulled.
Through the rip stepped Kintyre Turn and Bevel Dom. They were attired for battle, armed with all their best and most treasured weapons and armor, and in the pocket of Kintyre’s jerkin, he carried a flask of the best dragon whiskey Drebbin had to offer. They came, ready to fight, ready to protect, ready to finish the final battle between good and evil. Ready to win.
Pip sucks in a wobbling breath, and then reaches out and touches the very corner of the paper with the tip of one finger. I am not certain what she expects to happen. That it will crumble to dust, or electrocute her, or catch on fire, possibly? That perhaps magic will be made manifest in this bringing together of Writer and Reader?
Nothing happens, though. Nothing at all. Cautiously, tentatively, she takes the paper from me and smooths it over her thigh. The pen barely leaving a mark in her hesitance, Pip writes just below Elgar’s last line:
And with the excellent care of the hospital staff and the miraculous medicines of the Overrealm, Kintyre Turn completely healed by one o’clock in the morning, eastern standard time, and woke up.
Heaving a shaking sigh, Pip puts the pen back on the bedside table, and holds up her phone. We all watch breathlessly as the phone switches over from 12:59 to 1:00. Three sets of eyes dart immediately to Kintyre. We wait. The machines beep out their steady, rhythmic music. I am forced to exhale and inhale again.
At 1:03, Pip puts her phone away. She folds up the paper