Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

“Let me get his shirt off.”

“The girls are always saying that to me.”

Impatient, Fin merely jerked a hand over Connor, and had him bare-chested.

Connor stared at his arm, at the huge black burn, the peeling and bubbling skin. He felt oddly detached from it all, as if he looked at some little wonder behind glass.

“Would you look at that?” he said, and passed out.

Fin pressed his hands to the burn. Despite the pain that scorched through him, he held them there. Held the burning back.

“Tell me what to do,” Boyle demanded.

“Get him water. I can stop it from spreading, but . . . We need Branna.”

“I’ll go get her.”

“It’ll take too long. Get him water.”

Closing his eyes, Fin opened, reached out.

Connor’s hurt. Come. Come quickly.

“Water’s not going to help.” Still Boyle knelt down. “Either of you. It’s burning your hands. I know what that’s like.”

“And you know it can be fixed.” Sweat popped out on Fin’s face, ran in a thin river down his back. “I can’t know how far this might take him if I don’t hold it.”

“Ice? He’s on fire, Fin. We can put him in a tub of ice.”

“Natural means won’t help. In my workshop. Get— No need,” he said with relief as Branna and Iona, with a wild-eyed Meara between them, popped into the kitchen.

Branna dropped down to Connor.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Cabhan for certain, but that’s all I know. He’s feverish, a bit delirious. The burn under my hands is black, deep, it’s trying to spread. I’m holding it.”

“Let me see it. Let me do it.”

“I’m holding it, Branna. I could do more, but not, I think, all. You can.” He set his teeth against the pain. “I won’t let him go, not even for you.”

“All right. All right. But I need to see it, feel it, know it.” She closed her eyes, drew up all she had, laid her hands over Fin’s.

Her eyes opened again, filled with tears, for the pain under her hands was unspeakable.

“Look at me,” she murmured to Fin. “He can’t, so you look for him. Be for him. Feel for him. Heal for him. Look at me.” Her eyes turned the gray of lake water, calm, so calm.

“Iona, put your hands over mine, give me what you can.”

“Everything I have.”

“It’s cool, do you feel the cool?” Branna said to Fin.

“I do.”

“Cool and clear, this healing power. It washes away the fire, floods out the black.”

When Connor began to shiver, and to moan, Meara dropped down, pillowed his head in her lap. “Shh now.” Gently, gently, she stroked his hair, his face. “Shh now. We’re here with you.”