Grave Peril (The Dresden Files 3)

"Be silent!" Lea snarled, and shook the rope. There was a sharp, stinging sensation, and my tongue literally stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tried to keep talking, but it made my throat buzz as though bees were in it, angry, stinging. I kept silent.

"Well," Thomas said. "I'd like to see this. I've never seen an external transformation before. Do proceed, madame." He waved his hand impatiently. "Dog him, already!"

"This is a trick," Lea hissed. "It will avail you naught, wizard. No matter what hidden powers your friends are preparing to cast at me - "

"We're not," Michael put in. "I swear it on the Blood of Christ."

Lea sucked in a breath, as though the words had brought a sudden chill over her. She rode the horse up to me, close, so that the animal's shoulder pressed against mine. She reeled in on the braided leather of the lariat as she did, until she held it by a length of no more than six inches, jerking hard against my throat, hauling me almost off balance. She leaned down close to me and whispered, "Tell me, wizard. What are you hiding from me?"

My tongue loosened again, and I cleared my throat. "Oh. Nothing much. I just wanted a bite to eat before we left."

"A bite," Lea murmured. Then she jerked me over toward her and leaned down close, dainty nostrils flaring. She inhaled, slow, the silken mass of her hair brushing against my cheek, her mouth almost nuzzling mine.

I watched her face, her expression changing to slow surprise. I spoke to her in a quiet voice. "You recognize the smell, yes?"

The whites showed around her emerald eyes as they opened wider. "Destroying Angel," she whispered. "You have taken death, Harry Dresden."

"Yep," I agreed. "Toadstool. Amanita virosa. Whatever. The amantin toxin is going to show up in my blood in about two minutes. After that, it will start tearing apart my kidneys and liver. A few hours from now, I'll collapse, and if I don't die then, then I'll apparently recover for a few days while my innards fall apart, and then drop into arrest and die." I smiled. "There's no specific antidote for it. And I kind of doubt even you could use magic to put me back together again. Stitching closed a wound is a lot different from major internal transmutation. So, shall we?" I started walking in the direction Lea had come from. "You should be able to enjoy tormenting me for a few hours before I start vomiting blood and die."

She jerked the lariat tight, halting me. "This is a trick," she hissed. "You are lying to me."

I looked up at her with a lopsided grin. "Now, Godmother," I said. "You know I'm a terrible liar. Do you think I could really lie to you? Do you not smell it yourself?"

She stared at me, her face twisting slowly into an expression of horror. "Merciless winds," she breathed. "You have gone mad."

"Not mad," I assured her. "I know precisely what I'm doing." I turned to glance back at the bridge. "Goodbye Michael. Goodbye Thomas."

"Harry," Michael said. "Are you sure we shouldn't - "

"Shhh," I said, shooting him a look. "Ixnay."

Lea's eyes flickered back and forth between us. "What?" she demanded. "What is it?"

I rolled my eyes, and gestured at Michael.

"Well," Michael said. "As it happens, I have something here that might help."

"Something?" Lea demanded. "What?"

Michael reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a small vial, capped at one end. "It's extract of St. Mary's Thistle," he said. "They use it in a lot of hospitals in Europe, for mushroom poisoning. Theoretically, it should do quite a bit to help a poisoning victim survive. Provided it's taken in time, of course."

Lea's eyes narrowed. "Give it to me. Now."

I tsked. "Godmother. As your faithful pet and companion, I feel I should warn you about how dangerous it is for one of the high sidhe to accept gifts. It could bind you to the giver if you don't return a gift in kind."

Lea's face slowly flushed scarlet, sweeping up from the creamy skin of her collarbones and throat over her chin and cheeks and up into her hair. "So," she said. "You would drive a bargain with me. You would take deadly toadstool to force me to release you."

I lifted my eyebrows and nodded, with a smile. "Essentially, yes. You see, I figure it's like this. You want me alive. I'm not of any use to you dead. And you won't be able to undo the poisoning with magic."

"I own you," she snarled. "You are mine now."

"Beg to differ," I said. "I'm yours for the next couple of days. After that, I'm dead, and I won't be doing you any more good."

"No," she said. "I will not set you free in exchange for this potion. I too can find the thistle."

"Maybe," I admitted. "Maybe you can even do it in time. Maybe not. Either way, without a trip to the hospital, there's not much chance of me living, even with the extract. And none at all, really, if I don't get it soon."

"I will not trade you away! You have given yourself to me!"

Michael shrugged one shoulder. "I believe that you wrought a bargain with a foolish young man caught in the heat of the moment. But we aren't asking you to undo it altogether."

Lea frowned. "No?"

"Naturally not," Thomas said. "The extract only offers Harry a chance at life. That's all we'd ask from you. You'd be obliged to let him go - and bound for a year and a day to do no harm to him or his freedom so long as he remains in the mortal world."

"That's the deal," I said. "As a faithful pet, I should point something out: If I die, you never get me, Godmother. If you let me go now, you can always give it a shot another night. It isn't as though you have a limited number of them, is it. You can afford to be patient."

Lea fell silent, staring at me. The night fell silent as well. We all waited, saying nothing. The quiet panic I already felt, after eating the toadstool, danced about my belly, making it twitch and jerk.

"Why?" she said, finally, her voice very quiet, pitched only for me. "Why would you do this to yourself, Harry? I don't understand."

"I didn't think you would," I said. "There are people who need me. People who are in danger because of me. I have to help them."

"You cannot help them if you are dead."

"Nor if I am taken by you."

"You would give your own life in place of theirs?" she asked, her tone incredulous.