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Now, she was forcing it into her mouth.

A moment later, Taly began to choke.

“Anything?” Skye asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe a swallow…” Sarina set the vial aside.

Taly coughed around the liquid like she was drowning. Skye felt helpless—completely and utterlyuseless.

They were so close, so damn close, if he lost her now—

“Give me that.”

Skye obeyed, handing Sarina an herbal expectorant potion. She dabbed some onto a cloth. “Breathe in as best you can.”

Taly gasped, sharp and desperate, her breath snagging on the cloth Sarina pressed to her mouth. She turned her head, trying to pull away, but it was too late—enough of the scent had slipped in.

Then Sarina turned her onto her side and gave her back a solid hit with her fist.

Taly spat something black and thick onto the table.

“Good girl,” Sarina murmured. “Better out than in.” She landed another solid hit, and Taly coughed up more of that black gunk. It looked like blood that had clotted, and it was coming up out of her lungs. No wonder she couldn’t catch a breath.

“Come on.” Sarina delivered another solid strike as Taly continued to cough and cough.

Then, the most beautiful sound—she gasped in a breath. A real one.

“Good,” Sarina cried, laughing. “Give me another big breath, little one. Can you do it?”

Taly tried but needed another solid slap on the back to get past whatever hitch made each successive breath so wet and ragged.

But she was breathing, at least—however labored. Lying on her side, her eyes still stubbornly refused to open.

“Scrapes and bruises,” Sarina murmured. She gave his shoulder a hard shove. He barely felt it. “Scrapes and bruises?! She was drowning on dry land, and you tell me to come prepared for a few‘scrapes and bruises’?”

“Blame Kato. He had the comm,” Skye answered flatly. His focus remained on Taly and the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

Why wouldn’t she open her eyes? Didn’t she know it was killing him?

Sarina had to press her hand to his cheek and physically pull away his focus. She searched his face, his eyes, and saw the weariness there. How much of him the last five days had eroded.

“Oh, my brave boy,” she whispered tearfully. “You did so well.”

He took her hand and squeezed, the only thing he could do when words wouldn’t come. Everyone else had called it hopeless, told him to move on, let go. But he hadn’t. He’d kept believing. He’d shouldered that pain alone, and just theacknowledgement that he wasn’t insane, that this all wasn’t some elaborate fever dream—it eased that knot in his chest.

“Where are the others?” Sarina asked. “Lord Brenin’s mages?”

Vaughn, Carin, and Asher—the other three members of their party who were now conspicuously absent.

“Dead,” Skye answered. “They turned on us. They knew what Taly was and tried to take her for themselves.”

Sarina’s expression turned grim. “They discovered her?”

“No, theyknew. They followed me to get to her. We were targeted.”

Taly coughed again, though this time it was more controlled, less hacking.

Then, her eyes—they opened.