Get back to bed, dum dum

===10 Spring 1386==========

Out of nowhere I shuddered awake, completely awake, unsure what had roused me. Not a dream—I was pretty sure I hadn’t been dreaming. It took me a moment, while my eyes adjusted to the darkness, to realize that in my sleep I’d turned over and curled up on my side, and that I was facing the far wall of his room.

I startled just about out of my skin when I realized Curry was standing there next to the bed, looking solemnly down at me.

“Fucking hells, Mag!” I scolded him after I recovered enough to swing my legs over the side of the bed. “That’s really goddamned creepy—and what are you even doing up? I hope you’re not out of your skull again. I swear—” I left off with a yelp of confused fright when I reached for his hand and touched only empty air.

My mind caught up to my senses a moment later as I took in the sight of Curry’s shade, silently watching me, as if mildly curious what I might do.

Dread flooded me.

“Don’t you dare!” I hissed at the specter, then lurched to his side of the bed and threw the covers off him, **** to prove to myself that thing still standing there was impossible, was some mistake, meant nothing at all.

Curry was warm, at least, but it was too dark to see anything else, and he didn’t rouse to me shaking him. My hands were trembling too hard to light the lamp, so I ran to my own room, winging myself on the door jamb in the process, and got one of the flameless tapers I preferred but hadn’t been using because Curry thought they were too bright. I blew on it as I ran back, bouncing myself clumsily off the door trim again, and set it on the bed stand so I could have a better look at him.

He looked worse than before, and I’d have been able to tell that much even if his shade wasn’t lingering in mute observation of the scene: his skin was still pale and clammy like it had been earlier, but a faint bluish cast had crept into his coloring where it hadn’t been before. I didn’t know specifically what that signified, but the only place I’d ever before seen anything approaching such a ghastly pallor was on a strangulation victim we’d had last year. I felt at Curry’s wrist for his heartbeat, noting with alarm how the blue-ish purple tinge was even more pronounced in his fingertips. When I didn’t feel anything there I fought down my fear and pressed my fingers to the big blood vessel in his neck, except my hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t decide whether I felt anything there or not.

I put my hand in front of his mouth, trying to figure out if he were still breathing, only I couldn’t tell—how was I supposed to tell? My own breath was starting to come in fast, terrified, little hiccupping sobs, because I had no idea what to do for him, or for that matter, whether his shade standing around meant he was already dead. The only thing I did know for certain was that if I left him now to fetch someone he would certainly die, and as much as I couldn’t bear for him to die, I really, truly could not bear for him to die without me at his side.

“Magnus, please wake up,” I sobbed hysterically, shaking him, and when that did nothing, I pressed my hands against his bare chest, trying to see if his heart was still beating. “I should never have listened to you,” I cried to the shade, “and now you’re going to die and it’s all my fault!”

It just stood there looking at me with a vague air of expectation.

After a protracted moment of panicked, useless casting about for anything I could do to fix a person who physically couldn’t breathe and wasn’t even awake to be convinced he should try, I simply rested my forehead on his chest and wept. The whole of my sorry future existence without him was sprawling out in front of me. This was the end, not only for Curry, I thought distinctly, for it would represent the extinguishment of every good thing in my life.

I stirred violently when I became aware someone behind me was saying my name.

“Nan?” I jerked upright and whirled around, but she wasn’t there. “Nan?” I choked, now as bewildered as I was frightened and grief-stricken.

“Not Nan.” The woman who materialized in front of me did look a lot like her mother Magda, though, and I saw Curry’s features plain in her face as well.

My legs threatened to buckle at this incremental turn. “No-no-no-no-no,” I cried, dropping to my knees and bawling even harder. “Please don’t take him away,” I blubbered, “I need him!”

“Fauzia,” repeated Hildy, in that exaggeratedly patient tone that meant you were supposed to calm down and pay attention, except I couldn’t calm down because I knew how much Curry loved his mother, and now she was here to escort him to Lord Rava, and he would definitely want to go with her. “Settle down and listen,” she said, and her voice had enough of Nan’s familiar steel in it this time that I abruptly shut up and did my best to obey. “I’m not here to take him away,” she said when I quieted enough to let her talk. “I’m trying to keep him from going.”

“C-Can’t you just tell him not to?” I flung one arm accusingly at the shade.

“It’s too uncomfortable to inhabit a body that’s dying. That’s why he doesn’t want to stay. He’s as good as locked out right now.”

To hear this stated so plainly set me gasping with sobs again, but I did my best at least to be quieter about it now, so she wouldn’t think I wasn’t heeding what she said. “What do you want me to do?” I asked once I could take in a breath again.

“He isn’t getting enough air. He’s breathing, but only barely. You have to get some of the fluid out of his lungs.”

“How?” I swiped my hands over my eyes and tried to collect myself.

“Down to the pantry, quick you go, and fetch back at least one vial of smelling salts, some syrup of ipecac, and some peppermint oil. You probably saw the ipecac yesterday but the book didn't tell you to do anything with that because it’s usually used to treat croup. But it can be used to induce spasms to help bring up mucus from the lungs in cases like this.”

I was already on my feet again and racing to the kitchen, tearing down the stairs like a madwoman and only narrowly avoiding a head-over-heels tumble the rest of the way after skidding on the landing and nearly breaking the newel post at the bottom when I seized it to keep from falling once I reached the bottom. I found the things she wanted, then ran back, panting with the effort. Curry’s mother went with me, both ways, using the time to explain what I must do with all these different medicines. Back in his room I stoked the fire in a hurry, then held the first cotton-wrapped vial of smelling salts under his nose with shaking hands and snapped the glass.