Chapter 173
Lirael
I set up my tablet on the bathroom counter, angling the camera so it would capture my face, then powered on the communicator with fumbling fingers. Damian answered on the first ring, his expression grave as he took in my surroundings.
"You're sure about this?" he asked without preamble.
"I'm sure." I unwrapped the first stalk of moonshade, staring at the alien texture of its leaves. "Walk me through it one more time."
"One stalk every two minutes. The first three should be manageable—mild nausea, slight burning sensation in your throat and stomach. The fourth and fifth are where it gets difficult. By the sixth, you'll be experiencing severe pain. The seventh will push you to the edge of what you can endure."
"And after that?"
"After that, you wait. The peak pain will hit around twenty minutes after the final dose, and it will last for approximately ninety minutes. Your body will be producing moon dew at an accelerated rate during this time—you'll need to collect it in the vials I've provided." He paused, his expression softening fractionally. "Lirael, you can still back out. We can find another way—"
"There is no other way," I interrupted, bringing the first stalk to my lips with a hand that shook. "Not one that works fast enough. So let's do this before I lose my nerve."
I bit down before I could second-guess myself, and bitter taste exploded across my tongue like concentrated poison. Jesus fucking Christ. The leaves dissolved almost immediately, sliding down my throat in a viscous stream that made me gag, but I forced myself to swallow, to keep breathing through the initial wave of nausea that rolled through my gut.
"One down," Damian said, his voice steady and grounding. "How do you feel?"
"Like I just drank battery acid mixed with gasoline," I managed, reaching for the second stalk with shaking hands. "But I'm okay. I can do this."
The second went down easier than the first, my body already beginning to adapt to the foreign substance flooding my system. The third followed two minutes later, and by then I could feel the burning beginning in earnest—a slow simmer in my stomach that promised to become an inferno.
Come on, Lirael. Three down, four to go. You've got this.
The fourth stalk made me double over, my hands bracing against the counter as pain lanced through my abdomen like someone had shoved a white-hot poker through my guts. It felt like molten metal poured directly into my digestive tract, every nerve ending screaming in protest as my body tried desperately to reject the poison I was forcing into it.
"Fuck," I gasped, my vision swimming. "Fuck, that hurts."
"Breathe," Damian instructed, his voice cutting through the haze of pain. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Don't fight it—let the pain wash over you and then let it go."
I followed his instructions mechanically, focusing on the rhythm of my breathing rather than the agony radiating from my core. The fifth stalk went down like swallowing broken glass, and I felt my legs give out, my body sliding to the floor as the cool bathroom tiles pressed against my overheated skin.
"Halfway there," Damian said, and I could hear the strain in his voice now, the helpless frustration of watching someone suffer and being unable to intervene. "You're doing so well, Lirael. Just two more."
The sixth stalk nearly broke me. The pain had evolved from burning to something more visceral, like claws shredding my internal organs from the inside out. I could feel my magic surging in response, my body's natural defenses trying to purge the moonshade even as it forced my production glands into overdrive. Sweat poured down my face, my vision graying at the edges as I struggled to remain conscious.
"Last one," I gasped, my hand fumbling for the final stalk. My fingers were numb, clumsy, and it took three tries to get a grip on it. "Almost there. Come on, you stubborn bitch, almost there."
The seventh stalk of moonshade slid down my throat, and the world exploded into white-hot agony. I curled into myself on the bathroom floor, my forehead pressed against the cool tiles as my body convulsed with the effort of processing the poison I'd just ingested. Every cell felt like it was being systematically torn apart and reassembled, my magic running wild as it tried to contain the damage while simultaneously ramping up moon dew production to lethal levels.
Oh God. Oh fuck. I can't—I can't do this. It's too much.
"Twenty minutes," Damian's voice filtered through the haze, distant and tinny like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. "You just need to hold on for twenty minutes, and then the peak will pass. Can you do that for me, Lirael? Can you hold on?"
I wanted to answer, to reassure him that I was fine, that I could handle this. But my jaw had locked, my teeth clenched so hard I could feel them grinding together, and all I could manage was a small, broken sound that might have been agreement or might have been a sob. I couldn't tell anymore.
The minutes crawled by with agonizing slowness, each second feeling like an eternity as the pain built to impossible levels. I could feel the moon dew beginning to seep from my tear ducts, could taste the sweet-salt of it on my lips as my body frantically produced the substance that would save Sebastian's life. My hands scrabbled against the tiles, nails scraping uselessly as I tried to find something, anything to anchor myself to.
It's working. Despite the agony, despite the way my body was trying to shut down in self-defense, it was fucking working.
I just had to survive long enough to see it through.
My vision went white, then black, then white again. I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, the copper taste mixing with the sweetness of moon dew. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Damian's voice, steady and calm, talking me through it, but the words didn't make sense anymore. Everything had narrowed down to this—the pain, the tiles beneath my cheek, the desperate need to stay conscious.
For Sebastian. I'm doing this for Sebastian.
The thought was a lifeline in the chaos, something to cling to when everything else felt like it was disintegrating. I held onto it with everything I had, even as my body screamed for mercy, even as darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.
Just a little longer. Just hold on a little longer.