House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

A star bloomed inside her at that kiss. A long-slumbering light began to fill her chest, her veins.

“Burning Solas,” the witch whispered, and the pain ceased.

Like a switch had been flipped, the pain was gone. It was startling enough that Bryce turned away from Hunt and peered at her body, the blood on it, the gaping wound. She might have fainted at the sight of a good six inches of her leg lying open were it not for the thing that the witch held between a set of pincers, as if it were indeed a worm.

“If my magic wasn’t stabilizing the venom like this, it’d be liquid,” the witch said, carefully moving the venom—a clear, wriggling worm with black flecks—toward a glass jar. It writhed, like a living thing.

The witch deposited it in the jar and shut the lid, magic humming. The poison instantly dissolved into a puddle within, but still vibrated. As if looking for a way out.

Hunt’s eyes were still on Bryce’s face. As they’d been the entire time. Had never left.

“Let me clean you out and stitch you up, and then we’ll test the antidote,” the witch said.

Bryce barely heard the woman as she nodded. Barely heard anything beyond Hunt’s lingering words. I’ve got you.

Her fingers curled around his. She let her eyes tell him everything her ravaged throat couldn’t. I’ve got you, too.

Thirty minutes later, Bryce was sitting up, Hunt’s arm and wing around her, both of them watching as the witch’s glowing, pale magic wrapped around the puddle of venom in the vial and warped it into a thin thread.

“You’ll forgive me if my method of antidote testing fails to qualify as a proper medical experiment,” she declared as she walked over to where an ordinary white pill sat in a clear plastic box. Lifting the lid, she dropped the thread of venom in. It fluttered like a ribbon, hovering above the pill before the witch shut the lid again. “What is being used on the street is a much more potent version of this,” she said, “but I want to see if this amount of my healing magic, holding the venom in place and merging with it, will do the trick against the synth.”

The witch carefully let the thread of the magic-infused venom alight on the tablet. It vanished within a blink, sucked into the pill. But the witch’s face remained bunched in concentration. As if focused on whatever was happening within the pill.

Bryce asked, “So your magic is currently stabilizing the venom in that tablet? Making it stop the synth?”

“Essentially,” the witch said distantly, still focused on the pill. “It takes most of my concentration to keep it stable long enough to halt the synth. Which is why I’d like to find a way to remove myself from the equation—so it can be used by anyone, even without me.”

Bryce fell silent after that, letting the witch work in peace.

Nothing happened. The pill merely sat there.

One minute passed. Two. And just as it was nearing three minutes—

The pill turned gray. And then dissolved into nothing but minuscule particles that then faded away, too. Until there was nothing left.

Hunt said into the silence, “It worked?”

The witch blinked at the now-empty box. “It would appear so.” She turned to Bryce, sweat gleaming on her brow. “I’d like to continue testing this, and try to find some way for the antidote to work without my magic stabilizing the venom. I can send over a vial for you when I’m finished, though, if you’d like. Some people want to keep such reminders of their struggles.”

Bryce nodded blankly. And realized she had absolutely no idea what to do next.





62

Jesiba hadn’t seemed to care when Bryce explained that she needed the rest of the day off. She’d just demanded that Bryce be in first thing tomorrow or be turned into a donkey.

Hunt flew her home from the medwitch’s office, going so far as to carry her down the stairs from the roof of the apartment building and through her door. He deposited her on the couch, where he insisted she stay for the remainder of the day, curled up beside him, snuggled into his warmth.

She might have stayed there all afternoon and evening if Hunt’s phone hadn’t rung.

He’d been in the midst of making her lunch when he picked up. “Hi, Micah.”

Even from across the room, Bryce could hear the Archangel’s cold, beautiful voice. “My office. Immediately. Bring Bryce Quinlan with you.”

While he dressed in his battle-suit and gathered his helmet and weapons, Hunt debated telling Bryce to get on a train and get the fuck out of the city. He knew this meeting with Micah wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Bryce was limping, her wound still tender enough that he’d grabbed her a pair of loose workout pants and helped her put them on in the middle of the living room. She’d registered for a follow-up appointment in a month, and it only now occurred to Hunt that he might not be there to see it.

Either because this case had wrapped up, or because of whatever the fuck was about to go down in the Comitium.

Bryce tried to take all of one step before Hunt picked her up, carrying her out of the apartment and into the skies. She barely spoke, and neither did he. After this morning, what use were words? That too-brief kiss he’d given her had said enough. So had the light he could have sworn glowed in her eyes as he’d pulled away.

A line had been crossed, one from which there was no walking away.