Linus took one side of the distraught gwyllgi, and I took the other. We hooked our hands around her upper arms and lifted her off Hood, removing the obstruction from his airway. We sat her on the couch, where she covered her face and started weeping in great, ugly waves of misery.
Linus knelt beside Hood and checked his vitals. “He’s unconscious, but his pulse is steady.”
“Hear that?” I called over her caterwauling. “He’s alive. Linus says he’s okay.”
“He’s alive?” Eyes red, nose dripping, she sniffled. “I didn’t k-k-kill him?”
“I’ll see if I can bring him around.” Linus pulled out his modified pen. “You go calm down Lethe,” he murmured to me. “Stress isn’t good for her in her condition.”
Shoving off the planks, I crossed to her, plopped down on the couch, and hauled her against me.
“Hush.” I grimaced when she wiped globs of snot on my shirt. “He’s okay, you’re okay. The donuts are okay. Everyone is okay.”
“I attacked my mate over an inferior pastry,” she sobbed. “That’s not okay.”
Don’t blame hormones. Don’t blame hormones. Don’t blame hormones. “It must be a pregnancy thing.”
“I’m not hormonal,” she growled. “I’m just hungry.”
Few things had ever terrified me as much as realizing I cradled a pissed-off lizard-dog thing against me. Gwyllgi tended to eat people who annoyed them, and I didn’t want her primal brain deciding I was some kind of delicacy she had been fattening up for the kill through the course of our friendship.
“I bet we can find more donuts if we split up and check the packing stations.” Risking my hand and possibly my life, I stroked her hair. “We bought dozens upon dozens. They can’t have eaten them all yet.”
The reason for the leftover donuts hit me in the gut, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
Thanks to Lacroix, many of the sentinels I had intended to treat hadn’t survived to indulge.
“You okay?” Lethe straightened. “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
“No.” I took the opportunity to put a foot of space between us. “I was thinking about the sentinels.”
“I shouldn’t have eaten their donuts.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m a monster.”
This time, she lifted the hem of her shirt to blow her nose, and I scrambled away from her bulge.
“You don’t have to sit so far away.” She wiped her cheeks. “I’m not going to eat you.”
“Your stomach.” Her belly was taut like she had swallowed a basketball. “How much did you eat?”
“Oh, that.” She glanced down. “She grows a little more every day. That’s how this works.”
“Linus.” I heard the shrill note in my voice, and so did Hood, who shot upright. “You need to get over here.”
“I’m coming,” Hood rasped. “Move aside, Lawson.” On hands and knees, he crawled the six feet between them and plunked down on the floor at her feet, looking puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
“That.” I pointed at her navel. “That’s what’s wrong.”
“You’re freaking me out.” Crimson washed over Lethe’s eyes. “Start making sense. Right now.”
“May I?” Linus indicated her baby bump. “Fair warning, my hands are cold.”
Lethe stared at her lap. “If it will wipe that look off her face, go ahead.”
Linus almost succeeded in hiding his reaction when she recoiled from his icy touch, but not from me.
“That’s actually kind of nice.” Lethe relaxed beneath his hands. “I bet you come in really handy during the summer.”
Willing to play along, he found a smile for her. “I have my uses.”
“The baby?” Hood prompted. “What’s wrong with my girls?”
“Nothing as far as I can tell.” Linus covered Lethe’s stomach with her shirt then stood. “I felt the baby kick, which is a good—if puzzling—sign.” At Hood’s look, he clarified. “Spontaneous fetal movement begins at eight weeks, but the fetus is too small for it to be noticeable. Most first-time mothers experience the sensation eighteen to twenty-two weeks into their pregnancy. I’m not sure if that timetable holds true for gwyllgi, but wargs and humans have the same gestation period.”
“Eighteen to twenty-two weeks?” Hood choked on his tongue. “Are you telling me she’s five months pregnant?”
“Developmentally, as near as I can tell, yes.”
“We’ll be parents in four months.” The color drained from his face. “Sooner, at this rate.”
“We’ll still get to be parents.” Lethe leaned down and kissed his pale cheek. “That’s what matters.”
“We need to get a healer or a physician in-house to monitor you.” I cupped her knee and jiggled her leg to get her attention. “Do you have any other contacts in the area?” I hated to ask, but it was careless not to take advantage of the resources at her disposal. “Can your mom send someone?”
“I’ll make the call.” Lethe glowered at me. “But I won’t be happy about it.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “I have to think how to phrase this just right. Otherwise, she’ll pop up on your doorstep, and nobody—and by nobody, I mean me—wants that to happen.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” I rose and cut a line straight for the back porch where I dropped onto the swing. Eager for a distraction, I checked my messages and found one waiting from a jeweler in Atlanta. About to read his reply, I noticed I wasn’t alone. “Hey.”
“You can’t blame yourself.” Linus stood in the doorway. “You saved the child, and Lethe.”
“I mashed fast-forward on her pregnancy. At this rate, she’ll be in labor in two months.”
“You performed a miracle, not cast a curse.”
“Miracle is a loaded word.” I didn’t fuss when he sat next to me. “Don’t put the weapon in my hand. The first time it misfires, the villagers come after you with torches and pitchforks.”
“You have a fixation with torches and pitchforks.”
“I watched a lot of classic monster movies with Amelie when we were kids. Those mob scenes set unrealistic expectations. Like those eighties flicks that led an entire generation to believe quicksand would be the greatest danger they faced as adults.” I held up my phone. “I’ve seen the memes. I know what I’m talking about here.”
“Do you think it’s possible you’re fixating on Lethe to avoid thinking about what Boaz told us?”
“The thought crossed my mind. I squished it like a bug.”
Silent laughter twitched his shoulders, but his expression held worry. “You don’t have to go.”
“You’re not going alone.” No matter what, that remained true.
“Grier…”
“Linus…”
He gathered my hands and brought them into his lap. “You need to take this seriously.”
“I have to laugh or I’ll cry, and I don’t want to fall apart.” I let the chill of his skin numb my rising terror. “We don’t have the time to glue me back together again. Neither does Savannah.”
“I don’t want you to go back there.” He tightened his grip. “I have an excellent memory. I could—”
“I want to see the collection for myself.” I wished I could wipe the cold sweat off my palms, but Linus was holding on too tight. “We can’t guess what books we’ll need. There are too many, and one person can’t skim them all in time.” I wet my lips. “With Savannah under siege and Lacroix poised to breach the Lyceum, we might go down in history as the first special exceptions awarded for civilian visitation to the Athenaeum.”
“All right.” He bobbed his head once. “All right.”
The porch light dimmed, and Woolly’s wards thrummed with staccato annoyance.
“I wanted to check on Grier,” Boaz called. “Everything okay in there?”
“I’m good.” I got to my feet and went to greet him, me on the stairs, him safe on the lawn. “I had an involuntary response to our upcoming trip, that’s all.”
“Our trip?” Muscle bulged in his jaw as he grinded what he really wanted to say to dust. “Our trip. Yeah. Okay.” He wiped a hand over his mouth. “Okay.”
Color me surprised that he handled the news so well. Sure, he was turning a shade of rage-fueled purple that made me worry for his blood pressure, but he kept swallowing every no-doubt-belligerent comment balanced on his tongue until he got them all down.
“I’ll put in the request,” Boaz decided. “I’m familiar with the location, the staff, and the procedures. I can ask if the interim commander has any objections to my acting as escort since it’s my job to keep tabs on you.”
The reminder set my own molars scraping, but there was no point in arguing for his reassignment when the sentinels’ ranks had been so heavily depleted. After this, he would have no time to act as my shadow. “How soon can we leave?”
The truth was, I was putting on a brave face, but I worried it might crumble if we waited too long.
The rumble of engines and snap of doors slamming caught my attention.
“Linus.” Hood stuck his head out, spotted us. “You have guests.”
“The artists.” Linus drew me to my feet using our joined hands. “Come meet them?”
Boaz noticed my hesitation and volunteered. “I’ll come around front.”
We passed through Woolly, whose lights burned brighter with her curiosity, and met four women and two men on the lawn. Their styles ranged from jeans and tees to pink tutus over orange fishnets to a button-down shirt with a black satin vest. The art adorning their bodies was just as varied and vibrant as the people wearing them.