“Madison,” he tried to say, but his lips wouldn't form the syllables. He was struggling for breath, suffocating. Spots swam before his eyes. Barber hadn't meant to kill him, or at least not until after he'd tortured the truth out of him. He must've messed up.

Kneeling next to him, Madison touched his chest lightly where the graffe went in. “What the … ? It looks … it looks like your chest is on fire.” Then she clapped her mouth shut, eyes wide, seeming to realize that he might not find that reassuring. Madison had the ability to spot magic in others— even Barber's deadly graffe, apparently.

“Don't worry, now. Let's just see.” She pulled aside his jacket and lifted his sweatshirt to examine the wound.

“Gick,” he managed. And, then, “Gick!” again, louder. Meaning, We've got to get the hell out of here!

She ran her cold hands up his chest until she found the wound and pushed her fingertips into it. He nearly screamed from the pain of it, but then he felt a kind of sucking, a reverse pressure, and immediately the hot burn over his heart eased. And again she pressed her hands against his skin, scrunching up her face as if it was as hard on her as on him. His body lost some of its creeping cold rigidity and he could swallow his saliva again. She was drawing the magical venom away.

Madison pulled her hands back, wiping them vigorously on the weeds at the roadside, shuddering. “Yuck. This is bad nasty, whatever it is. I'm going to have a devil of a time getting rid of this. At least it's not…Who did this? Where did you come from?” She didn't really seem to expect an answer.

Madison stood, hands on hips, and looked up the slope. She seemed very tall and angular from Jason's position on the ground. “I thought maybe you dropped out of the sky, but looks like you rolled down from up there.”

He managed to croak, “Madison. Warren Barber's here. We've got to go before he sees us.” By now, Barber might have discovered his ruse and be heading back over the ridge in time to see what was happening at the side of the road.

“Warren Barber!” Madison had met Warren Barber before—at Second Sister—when she'd put him flat on his back in the inn garden.

At least she didn't ask a million questions. “Hang on, I'm going to put you in the truck. Nothings broken, is it?”

Dumbly, he shook his head. His arm was killing him, but broken bones were small change against what Barber would do if he came over that hill.

Madison disappeared from his field of view. The truck door slammed, and she was back with a paint-spattered canvas tarp. Sliding her hands under his arms, she tugged him onto it. Then, gripping the edge of the canvas, she dragged him along the berm to her ancient red pickup. The tailgate was down, but the opening seemed a mile away. Jason couldn't fathom how she was going to get him up into the bed. She propped him against the truck. Then she climbed into the truckbed, leaned down, wrapped her arms around his chest, and hauled him backward into the bed. He landed flat on top of her, but she wriggled out from underneath him.

“Sorry,” she muttered. She hurriedly arranged his extremities to her liking, then tossed the tarp over him, covering him completely. “Sorry,” she said again.

The truck jounced on its failing springs as she jumped down from the bed, then climbed up into the cab. The door slammed and the engine came to life. Rain pattered on the canvas over his head. He didn't know where he was going, he didn't know where Warren Barber was, and he didn't know if he'd survive the day.

Chapter Fifteen Along Came a Spider

Jason didn't remember much about the next several days. He felt dry and hot one minute, and cold and sweaty the next. He wrestled with dreams like he hadn't had since the ones Gregory Leicester had inflicted on him at the Havens.

He dreamed he was back in the woods and Warren Barber spun out cords from his wrists like Spiderman, wrapping him into a giant cocoon. He injected poison into him with giant fangs and left him hanging helpless in his web, saying, “I'll be back, and then you'll talk.”

He dreamed of Leesha and Barber, laughing together at Jason's stupidity and the deft way she'd played him. Jason had never been a magical powerhouse, but he'd always considered himself street-smart, at least. Right. Everyone had warned him about Leesha, and he'd ignored them. His only hope was that no one would ever find out what an idiot he'd been.

He burned with fever, embarrassment, and hot anger.

He'd wake, startled by the sound of his own voice reverberating in his ears, and he wondered what he'd said, how much he had revealed.

Madison was there, a lot of the time. She didn't suck out any more poison. Instead, she forced liquids and cups of soup into him.

He gripped her hands, in a rare moment of lucidity. “Maddie. Don't tell anyone about this. Not Seph. Not anybody. Please.”

“You are crazy, you know that?” She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, feeling for fever. “He needs to know what happened. I'm going to go to town and call him soon as I can leave you on your own.”

He struggled to sit up, flailing wildly under the quilt. “You call him, I'm out of here. Right now.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You gonna hitchhike, or what? Now lay down before I club you for a fool. You need somebody who knows about magic to treat you.”

“I'm much better. Really.”

Madison snorted.

Jason groped for an argument. “Look, Maddie, if you call him, he'll blame me for messing up and putting you in danger. One little thing he asked me to do, and I blew it. He'll never trust me to do anything again. I'd rather you just shot me in the head.” He pressed his fingertips against his forehead for emphasis.

She frowned. He could tell she was wavering.

“Besides, if you call him, nothing will keep him from coming down here. Meanwhile, everything falls apart up there.”

“Well,” she muttered, looking troubled, “we'll see. If you take a turn for the worse…”

He'd gotten to her. Jason smiled and closed his eyes and gave himself up to sleep.

The next time, he awoke to find two huge yellow dogs crowded in bed with him, one on either side. “Hey,” he said weakly, shoving at the one with its head on the pillow breathing dog breath in his face. The dog opened its eyes and licked Jason's face with an impossibly long black-and-pink tongue, then went back to sleep.

Some time later, a solemn-faced little girl with straight brown hair set a tray on the floor next to him and sat down with a bump.

“Where's Madison?” he asked, drawing the sheet up over his bare, bandaged chest, squinting his eyes against the light that snuck between battered rafters overhead.

“She had to go meet with her art teacher,” she said.

This didn't really process. What art teacher? “Who are you?”

“I'm Grace Minerva Moss,” she said. “Maddie's sister. I made you lunch. Grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she added, rather proudly. And, there, on the tray, was a paper plate with a slightly charred grilled cheese sandwich cut into two triangles, some saltine crackers, a mug of soup, a paper towel, and a can of root beer.

He was lying on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by paintings on easels, some unfinished. He recognized them as Madison's work. Heaving a pile of quilts aside, he tried to prop on his elbows but found his left arm was in a sling. So he rolled to his good side and sat up, raking his free hand through his hair. “Where am I?” he asked, when his head stopped spinning.

“You're in the barn. In the loft. Maddie's studio. I had to help Maddie carry you up here. You're real heavy, you know?” she added, accusingly.

He groped at his neck, and his hand closed on the dyrne sefa, still on its chain. “Where's my stuff? My clothes, I mean, and I had a backpack …”

Grace Minerva Moss pointed. He twisted round. His backpack was hanging on a peg on the wall. His clothes were folded in a little pile underneath. It was clean and tidy, for a barn, he guessed. His eyes traveled over the ranks of paintings.

“Madison paints up here?”

“Some. Plus everywhere else.”

Grace snatched up the paper towel and dropped it on his lap. A hint. He picked up the grilled cheese sandwich and bit into it. It was gritty with carbon, but had that deliciously greasy processed-cheese taste. He was suddenly ravenous. “This is great,” he mumbled, his mouth full of bread and melted cheese. “Is anyone else home?”

“Just my brother, J.R. And my mother. She's still asleep.” Grace leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, “She doesn't know you're here.”

Jason sucked down some soup, the comforting orangy canned stuff familiar from when he was a kid. Grace studied him, then extended her hand toward him, stopping a few inches away. “You're all sparkly,” she said, looking puzzled. “Like Brice Roper.”

Before he could respond, there was a scuffling below, then the sound of wood creaking. Jason stiffened, once again reaching for the dyrne sefa. A blond head poked up, as if through the floor.

Grace tried to put herself between Jason and the intruder. “John Robert Moss! I told you to stay in the sandbox.”

It was a little boy—Jason wasn't good with kids' ages— apparently the brother, J.R. The boy hauled himself up through the floor and turned and sat with his legs dangling through the hole. His face was smudged and dirty, and he wore blue jeans rolled to fit. “What are you doing up here? Who's that man?” he asked, pointing at Jason.

“Nobody,” she said furiously. “You shouldn't be in the barn at all. You know the hay gives you welts. Go away!” Jason thought for a moment she might poke him right back down the hole like a gopher in a cartoon.

“I want a grill-cheese sandwich,” J.R. howled, seeing the last of Jason's disappear. J.R. did, indeed, seem to be breaking out in red blotches all over his face, whether from hay or rage, Jason didn't know.

“You already had lunch, and I …” Grace began, but stopped, frowning, head tilted. Then Jason heard it, too, the crunch of gravel as someone drove into the yard.