I actually laughed out loud, I think, I’m not sure; I couldn’t hear myself, but it felt like a mad frightened giggle in my throat. It was just so utterly hilarious that I’d ever imagined I could face this. I couldn’t form any words, any coherent plan. Patience slammed into the evocation of refusal like a tidal wave hitting a seawall, sloshing fully over it like a dome encasing us; eyes smushed up against the surface and staring down at us blankly. It slid back down and came at us again: mana roared through me with the impact, blinding. I couldn’t have cast a killing spell even if I could have done anything whatsoever: it was taking everything I had to keep the evocation up, against a monstrosity that wouldn’t ever take no for an answer.
Then Precious put her head out and gave a shrill squeak, and I realized—I didn’t have to. “Orion!” I screamed. “Orion, come on!” He was standing there staring up at Patience through the shimmery dome evocation. I didn’t actually wait for him to respond; even while I was screaming I had already grabbed him by the arm. I pulled him back with me up the stairs, towards the doors. They were grinding a bit; they had just started to swing slowly shut. The crack around the base of the dais was widening.
Patience slammed into the evocation again, and I nearly fell over, prickling starbursts filling my eyes. I was hanging on Orion’s arm when my vision cleared; he hadn’t moved. I didn’t speak again, just yanked on him, dragging him one more step back.
But he wasn’t taking his eyes off Patience. There was a fierce terrible light in his face, that hunger I’d seen in him before, wanting a thing dead. And I couldn’t blame him: if anything in the universe wanted killing, it was that thing, that horrible monstrous thing; it needed to die. And the crack around the base of the dais was still widening, but it was going just a little bit more slowly than the doors were closing.
It wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things if ten or twenty other mals made it out, but it would matter if Patience made it out, if that sack of endless death escaped, to keep gnawing eternally on its victims’ bones and gobble up who knew how many countless others, unstoppable and forever.
But our time was running out: the hanging numbers of flame were counting down the last seconds. “We can’t!” I yelled at him, and turning braced my whole body and flung one hand out, at the end of a stiff arm, to hold Patience off again through one more thundering blow. I gulped air and turned back to haul Orion up one more step, to the very edge of the gateway, and then I let go of his arm and caught his face in both hands and pulled him round to look at me. “Orion! We’re going!”
He stared down at me. The seething colors of the gateway were shining in his eyes, mottling his skin, and he leaned in towards me, like he wanted to kiss me. “Do you want to get kneed again? Because I will!” I snarled at him, in outrage.
He jerked back from me, more ordinary color flushing into his cheeks. His eyes cleared for a moment; he looked back at Patience, and then he laughed once—he laughed, a short laugh, and it was awful. He turned to me and said, “El, I love you so much.”
And then he shoved me through the gate.