Join the club, I thought.
Sebille grabbed my arm, giving me a tug. “Come on. We need to move.”
I fought her grip, not willing to leave Hobs alone.
Whom caught my gaze, his huge eyes warm with compassion. “I’ll stay with him, child.” He reached down and tugged a feather from his cloak, handing it to me. “Dip the quill into the substance when you find it and release the feather. It will make its way back to me.”
I took the feather, scraping tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. “Thanks.”
He inclined his head and sat in a chair, where he proceeded to close his owlish eyes and fall immediately into sleep.
Sebille tugged my arm again. I let her lead me from the apartment, closing the door softly behind us.
“I have no idea where to start,” I told the sprite, my voice filled with hopelessness.
“That’s easy,” she told me, jogging down the stairs.
I plodded after her, too depressed to jog.
By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, she’d already called up a book on Obsession. The magical aura had barely faded when she opened it.
Amazing myself, I was disappointed when Osvald’s head didn’t rise from the pages.
The sprite flipped quickly through the pages, frowning as she skimmed the chapter heads looking for something that would help.
She stopped, her finger running over a picture on the page. “Loveland,” she muttered, frowning.
The name startled me out of my funk. “What?”
Sebille showed me the picture. “This says Obsession grows on a small island where life still thrives in the famed cupid city. It’s called Loveland.”
I grabbed the book, recognizing the broken lines of the city that Lovelace had taken me to. “I’ve been here!” But it hadn’t been an island and nothing was thriving there. What if we were too late?
Sebille grabbed it back. “When?”
“Lovelace took me there when he kidnapped me.”
“We need to go there,” Sebille said, eyeing the picture as if it would give her a clue how to get to it. Her head snapped up. “Call Lovelace.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I argued.
“Think, Naida!” her gruff command told me how worried she was about Hobs, better than any of her other words or actions had. Sebille usually took refuge in action when faced with a challenge. I tended to sink into self-pity and despair for a bit before clawing my way out and determining to fight.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know. He didn’t give me any way to get in touch.”
Sebille’s expression was beyond angry. I spun away, heading into the bookstore. I couldn’t do anything about her being mad. It was how she coped. But I had an idea. I found my phone and quickly dialed Grym. He answered on the fourth ring, when I was about to hang up. “Naida? I’m kind of busy.”
“You’re still fighting cherubs?”
“Dealing with the aftermath. What do you need?”
“Hobs is dying.”
Silence met my statement, and I thought I heard a muttered curse on the other end. He sighed. “What can I do?”
“I need to reach Lovelace. We need to go to the cupid city to find the poison so Doctor Whom can make an antidote.”
“Okay.”
“Have you, by any chance, captured any of the cherubs that you can question? Or did they all poof away?”
“Hold on a sec,” he said. “Sampson! Is that one still alive?”
I couldn’t hear the response, but Grym came back online a minute later. “We have one. What do you want me to do with it?”
Sebille showed up with the book of pages, handing it to me. “Where are you,” I asked him, taking the book.
“Enchanted General Hospital. Neonatal wing. Why?”
“Stay there. We’ll be right over.”
23
They Look Like Aliens
The pages flicked past, quick and jerky, hesitating occasionally and then starting up again as the book waited for me to give it direction. I called up a vision of Enchanted General Hospital. I had no idea what the maternity ward looked like, but I just pictured babies swathed in blue and pink blankets.
The magic swirled out of the book, a clear wash of energy dappled with multi-hued sparkles that swirled overhead and then slid down our bodies to the floor. Without warning, the energy tightened, squeezing us in a relentless grip, and began to twist. The world whipped past in a dizzying rush. My vision turned wonky. My stomach roiled until I closed my eyes against the resulting vertigo. Though I was expecting it, I sucked in a startled gasp when I was yanked off my feet and dragged inside the book.
Moments later, the magic dropped us in a corridor that smelled like baby powder and disinfectant and then sifted away. The book popped into its travel size, and I shoved it into my pocket, patting it for good measure.
I glanced at Sebille, who was shoving her long, red braid over one shoulder. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she complained, her eyes looking slightly crossed.
Glancing around, I noticed that we were standing in front of the window overlooking the nursery. Beyond the glass were row upon row of clear bassinets, many of them occupied with tiny figures wrapped tightly in pastel-hued blankets with matching caps on their heads.
Tiny puckered faces showed in the midst of the cloth wrappings, most of them asleep.
“Aw,” I said, moving closer to the glass.
“They look like aliens,” Sebille groused.
But I saw the wistful expression softening her face before she ruthlessly squelched it.
“Hey,” said a familiar deep voice.
I turned to find Grym striding my way.
“You got here fast,” he said, offering me a smile.
“We used the book,” I said, looking around. The area looked clean and calm, though I noticed the lack of medical personnel. “Is everybody okay?”
Grym sighed. “Yeah. We took the
