She took off at a fast walk toward and then through the back door of Austin’s house, leaving the sliding glass door open. That meant he was supposed to come right this second.
He rubbed his eyes, returning his focus to the bubbling brew in the pot in front of him. The acid bomb-like potion needed another five minutes of stable heating before it could be taken off the burner and cooled. Walking away now, after five hours or so of careful work, would ruin the mixture. He couldn’t take that risk.
He stirred the mixture counterclockwise for one stroke, then re-checked the potions book he’d found in Ivy House. He stirred one more stroke and closed his eyes, listening to the mixture. Feeling the way forward with his unshakable magical intuition. In times like this, where sleep was mostly nonexistent and stress was dangerously high, he could almost hear the potions talking to him. Half a stroke. Just another half stroke and you’ve got it.
He did as instructed, stopping the spoon at seven o’clock, if the cauldron were a clockface. That oughta do it.
“Sebastian!” Nessa shouted.
Her stress was at a dangerous level, too. There weren’t enough lasagnas in the world she could make to calm her down. The closer they got to Momar, the more complex everything became. The more room for error. The chance that they wouldn’t all live to see tomorrow. None of them would.
Jessie and Austin and all of them. Sebastian had pulled them into the Land of No Return. There was no longer any way out. This battle was just one of many dangerous things to come.
He couldn’t think about that now. One thing at a time.
He straightened up out of his stoop again, watching the liquid bubble merrily.
“Just one more minute,” he called.
Or had he just thought it? It was hard to say. He’d been muttering to himself, and thinking out loud, and thinking quietly for so many hours straight that he couldn’t quite tell if there was ever someone on the other end of his words. At least Ivy House had flickered her lights or pulsed her crystals or something. The plant life in this backyard were horribly inactive.
Something hard hit his head.
“Ow!” He rubbed the offending spot as a shove sent him toppling off his stool. “Dang it, Nessa, this potion is almost done! It’s dangerous—don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t going to touch it. Get up. Tristan’s been gone for a while. He might’ve found something.”
“What?” Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment, and then fell down a wormhole.
“Damn it,” he heard, right before a foot slammed into his back. “You should’ve slept when everyone else did. Not now. Get up!”
Nessa’s hands were rough. Or maybe it just seemed that way because he didn’t want to get up.
“Just two more—” Ding! “Oh. The timer is done. That was a fast five minutes.”
She sighed, hauling him to his feet and then graciously waiting while he moved the happily gurgling mixture off the burner before turning off the gas.
“We must always think of safety,” he murmured.
“You can’t work like this under these circumstances, Sabby,” she said. “It’s not working.”
“Fantastic wordplay.”
“It really wasn’t.” She directed him toward the open sliding glass door and then shoved him in.
“Jessie drugs me to sleep from time to time. Maybe you should ask Mr. Tom for the formula.”
“Or maybe you can be a big boy and look after yourself for once.”
He rubbed his eyes again, stopping at the too-big kitchen island. Her face swam into view, circles under her eyes and faint lines etching her tired face. “What’s with you?” he asked.
“I’ve got news. This time it’s not our network that’s under fire. It’s Jessie’s people…and us.
Remember we said to never get personal? That we’d never stay alive if we didn’t stay on our island?
Well, you’ve built a bridge from our island to another island, and it’s a lovely tropical island, with welcoming inhabitants and warm words, and now our island is under siege—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He held up his hand to stop the barrage of words. “At least when Patty babbles, it somehow makes sense. What?” He looked up at the corner of the room. “Where is Patty, anyway?”
“She’s coming with the third wave, I’ve heard. She wanted to talk to the basajaunak parents.”
A knock sounded at the front door. Nessa eyed Sebastian, a warning of some sort, before jogging that way. He still had no clue what was going on. Something to do with Tristan, but—