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“You need to go!” Her arms were shaking now, Hawthorne could see her face shining in the uneven light as she tried to hold back time.
He remembered a night in Eldritch, running down a street with his hands over his ears, saving his friends but also fully remembering what he was leaving behind. And while he had never liked Onstald much, there was a significant difference between that and knowingly leaving him to die.
He wasn’t going to leave Morrigan to die here. Or at least, not alone, “Come on!” he shouted, trying to cross the room, only to hit that invisible boundary again. He couldn’t understand how Morrigan was maintaining both that and the freeze but it didn’t look like she would be able to maintain it for much longer. “We can leave now,” he said. “We can still get out, come on.”
“I can’t leave,” she said, sounding very distant to him now, like underwater. “I have to stay here and make sure it’s finished.”
“You sound completely stupid right now,” his hands pressed against the boundary and it didn’t push him back this time. “Do you know that?”
She screamed in frustration, and the boundary broke, the freeze faltering for a second, like radio static made visible before resolving back into flames, paused before they could ignite Wintersea’s last “gift to the realm” that everyone had been so afraid of, but the damage had been done. It wasn’t frozen anymore, it was just moving, very slowly, and they had to get out.
“Morrigan!” he said again, finally able to get in front of her, but not willing to touch her in case her concentration waved. “Morrigan,” he didn’t need to say anything more. Hadn’t everything necessary already been said?
She nodded, faintly, looking over at the box, “I can’t stop it forever.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, “They’ll have evacuated everyone by now, but you need to come with me. We can do this all another day.”
“Yes,” she said, gasping slightly. She was swaying a little. “Another day.”
“I love procrastination. Especially if it’s for the end of the world.”
He put her arm around her shoulders and started to help her walk out of there, down the stairs. They had time to get out of the blast zone, but not a lot. As long as they could make it to the street though, they could get out of there. There was still a car there, he could drive.
But as soon as they hit the bottom stair, he heard the crack, and pushed her out the door, trying to move as fast as possible, force his legs to hit the ground and not stop, even as it got hotter and hotter, and there was such a loud sound that he couldn’t hear anything except a ringing in his ears, couldn’t feel anything except the way the concrete pavement felt against his chin, his hands, his knees.
Someone was grabbing at him, trying to get him up, trying to move him, but being awake was too difficult now, he couldn’t stop his eyes from shutting no matter how hard he tried.
Baby Dave was complaining about something and Morrigan was talking to her in measured tones, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. There had been other voices that had come and gone but this was the first time that he could recognise who was actually speaking to him, or maybe just near him.
He tried to blink, and it took a few tries but he managed to get his eyes opened, wincing against the bright lights of the room.
“You’re the worst,” Morrigan said, her eyes suspiciously red.
“Hawthorne!” He looked around, trying to see who had said his name but his neck was in some kind of brace.
“You twisted something when you fell,” she said. “Dave, come over here please? Let’s not bother Nurse Tim anymore than you already have.”
“Fine,” she said, stomping over to his eyeline.
He grinned at her, “How long was I out?”
“Three and a half days?” Morrigan said as soon as Dave said,
“Sooooo long. Like a year.”
Her eyes flicked briefly upwards, “I said I would call your parents as soon as you woke up. They were… persuaded to go home to sleep last night but-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hawthorne said. “Okay, just- did everyone make it out.”
“Yes,” Morrigan said. “You were right. They had cleared the zone. There’s still a lot of structural damage to be cleared up, but no immediate casualties.”
He sighed. He hadn’t really been sure that they had cleared the zone, only thinking that they needed to leave or their unit mates would be carrying two candles for them at the next Black Parade, “And what’s the damage?”
“You’ll have to speak to Dr Lutwyche,” she said. “I don’t know except they had to regrow a bunch of the skin on your legs, and the nerves because it all got burned off.”
“Yuck,” Dave stuck her tongue out.
“Wait,” he said, slowly sitting up. His whole body ached. “If mum and dad went home, why is-”
“I wasn’t going to leave!” she looked terrifying, and for the first time, like she had also been awake for several days. Morrigan looked fine, but wundersmiths had tricks about keeping themselves awake for unnaturally long amounts of time, like coffee but times a hundred or something. She did look a lot better than when he’d last seen her though. It was possible she had had a nap at some point. Maybe even a whole eight hours. “I told them I would start biting if they didn’t let me stay.”
“Arch had to get stitches,” Morrigan said, sotto voce. “He’s fine, but I think he’s scared of her now.”
He grinned, “What did Thaddea think?”
“I think she wants to be your sister’s patron,” she said, completely seriously.
“The Swifts could be the new Fitzwilliams and Akinfenwas.”
“As long as you’re less screechy than Hester,” she said. “I should go let Tim you’re awake, actually, I think he’s developing a complex about 919.”
“What’s a complex?” Dave asked.
“I’ll explain when you’re older,” he said, winking at her.
“You always say that.”