Chapter Ten: Under | Part 6
His eyelids drooped. He had no choice but to try. Protective helmets. Strobe lights. A hybrid fruit made out of five different fruits.
No. He could buy more time. He forced his eyes open. Flowers with smiling faces. A jacket that doubled as a fluffy blanket. Windchimes that played a beloved song from his childhood.
When his eyelids fell again, he knew it was the last stand. A spell that smelled like perfume when cast. Professor Bavarren’s watch being a secret carnivorous monster…
He’d forgotten why he was so drowsy. Why was it so hard to stay awake? And why was it so important that he do so when he was so very tired?
When he finally managed to open his eyes, he was in an unfamiliar bed—the infirmary, maybe? Rhea and Benn were by his side, but he struggled to remember what had happened. When he reached out, Rhea took his hand. “Don’t worry. You’re alright. You’re just waking up from anesthesia, so you might feel groggy.”
He did feel extremely groggy. And afraid. And nauseous. “What… happened?”
Benn grimaced. “They got you with bloodfire.” He moved aside Thirtyx’s inordinately fluffy blanket—covering his legs but also secured around his arms like a jacket. His calf was wrapped in thick bandages. “We stopped it from spreading too far, and we saved your leg.”
Something about that seemed familiar. The details surfaced through his sluggish mind. “Bloodfire. To the leg. Like Grimmary.”
Rhea gave an encouraging smile. “You two will have matching battle scars.”
“Who… who did it?”
“The same group that’s been after Grimm,” Benn spat. “Did you see them at all?”
Thirtyx struggled to remember. He’d been in a field. “The flowers… they had faces.”
Rhea squeezed his hand. “That’s right. It was meant as a distraction, but we have no idea who put them there.”
Thirtyx rubbed at his eyes. The motion felt wrong, like his hand wasn’t moving the way it should. An ache pulsed through his veins. Lingering effects of the anesthesia? Something in his gut told him that wasn’t right, but he was too tired to give it much thought. “Was it Veriths or Trolls? Like you were thinking?”
“We don’t know,” Benn muttered. “In all the chaos, we haven’t had time to investigate. Can you remember anything else?”
Thirtyx shook his head, a rhythmic motion that made his vision swim. Something about rhythmic motions…
“Oh, here!” Rhea procured a lumpy, misshapen gourd. “This is for you. Professor Bavarren said you should eat it to help heal your leg. It’s a weird magical amalgamation.” She eyed it carefully. “I see some apple. Maybe lustrefruit? I hear it glows if you turn off the light.”
Thirtyx had a visceral reaction to the thought of eating anything Professor Bavarren gave him. He wasn’t supposed to trust him for some reason. He looked around as if to make sure the man wasn’t there with them. “Bavarren treated me?”
Benn frowned. “Well, he tried, but the enemy got him too. Hexed his pocket watch. It tried to eat the poor man!”
Bavarren’s pocket watch attacked him? Thirtyx had never liked that watch. It had hurt him too, once, hadn’t it? Swinging back and forth. Back and forth.
Putting him in a trance.
A trance.
Thirtyx bolted out of bed. His head swam with such gusto that the whole room lurched beneath his feet. It was dissolving. Rhea and Benn were unraveling.
And he opened his eyes in the headmistress’ office.
Calley Jones 