Page 143 of Serpent and Shadow

As usual, he looked annoyed the instant he met my gaze.

All that said, he walked in immediately after that brief pause to stare.

It wasn’t until he began to walk that I realized he’d brought his full satchel with him. The bottles inside the heavy black case clinked as he walked. I knew that case only ever left his laboratory when he expected to be working. Once, while bored watching him pour molten metal into molds, I’d peered inside the open flap and buckle straps, and found it filled with potions and amulets and his talismans and a crystal ball.

Once he’d seen me looking, he’d dropped everything he was doing, marched all the way across the room, and snatched the case off the stool where he’d left it. He shoved it into a cupboard on the table where he’d been working and glowered at me from across the room.

He wasn’t much friendlier tonight.

“Everyone out,” he growled, when he was halfway to my old bed.

Jolie, who still sat next to me, jumped.

So did Draken, who still sat cross-legged on the other side. Luc and Nyx, who’d been talking over by my bedroom fireplace, looked over with equally surprised expressions.

Then, every one of them followed Blackstone’s orders without protest and began to file out of the room. Blackstone didn’t watch them go. His eyes remained on me as he finished crossing the space in his dark blue suit. He reached the edge of my bed, flipped the edge of his long robe out of the way, and sat down next to me, right where Jolie had been sitting.

Inside my magic, Bones seethed.

Ask him where the fuck he was, Bones growled. Ask him where he and the rest of that fucking useless Golden Sun was, and why they just sat and watched while you were being murdered on their doorstep––

“Kindly tell Mr. Bones to calm down,” Blackstone said, exhaling in obvious irritation. “If he cannot control himself, I will banish him from the room.”

I’d love to see the prick try––

“Drink this,” Blackstone said, either not hearing Bones’s answer, or deliberately ignoring it. He plucked a bottle out of his heavy satchel and held it out in my direction. He didn’t try to put it in my hand, but waited. “Do you need my help to sit up?” he asked tersely.

I could tell he very much did not want to help me with that.

I shook my head.

I was pretty sure I could do it.

Blackstone just sat there, holding the blue-tinted bottle in one hand as I used my elbows and hands to shove myself backward so I could lean against my old pillows and headboard. I grimaced as I flexed the muscles of my arms, pushing down on the mattress to drag myself up. I winced again when I used my legs to push the rest of me myself across the mattress.

My head pounded by the end, and my arms and ribs were screaming at me, but I managed to get myself more or less upright on my own.

I leaned carefully against the goose-down and wood, and exhaled.

“Okay,” I said.

Every muscle in my body hurt, which was a sad testament to just how much worse I’d felt before Jolie and the others spent the last half-hour working on me.

Blackstone offered me the blue-tinted bottle a second time.

I took it from his hand, uncorked it, and drank it down without being prompted. I knew he’d never give me the whole thing unless he meant me to down all of it.

Where was he? Bones repeated coldly.

I finished the last of the potion off with a gasp.

Heat flowed through my limbs, making them twitch and prickle but leaving them warm and significantly more supple after the wave of magic passed through. I took my first full lungful of breath in over an hour and let it out, and it didn’t even hurt. My headache didn’t disappear entirely in those first few seconds, but already I felt a lot better.

“Thanks,” I said to Blackstone, handing back the bottle.

I meant it.

“I have more for you,” the professor muttered, pulling out an ornate silver box and placing it on the bed. “A few things I’ve been working on myself––”