She was blue. She wasn’t breathing.
He scrambled back to her side and grabbed her shoulders. “Cooper! Cooper!” What had happened? Short of breath and light-headed, he sank onto the bed and shook her again. “Isla!”
Her head lolled back, and in a panic, unable to think, he lifted her against his chest, cradling her head close. Her arms hung limp and heavy; her body was cold. He rocked slowly back and forth, an ache spreading in his chest. It made no sense. She was vibrant, strong. Full of energy and life. He could not equate the woman he had seen in action over the last few days with the one who now exhibited less animation than a ’ton.
He released her, his throat raw, and set her gently back down on the pillow. He returned to his room for his telescriber and sent a quick message to Lewis, then waited by his door, his eyes burning and his stomach hurting so much he thought he might be ill.
In moments, a soft knock sounded and he opened the door.
Lewis’s expression was exhausted disbelief. “What happened to her?”
Daniel simply gestured for Lewis to follow him into the first mate’s cabin. He was numb. “I don’t know the details, but it is why she is going to Port Lucy,” he stammered. “A curse, a spell—she cannot awaken from midnight until six in the morning, but she never . . .” His voice broke, and he swallowed back bile. “She said she sleeps! That is not sleep!”
Lewis frowned and sat on the bed. He picked up her wrist and laid two fingers on the inside pulse point, then shook his head and put his hand at her throat. He repositioned his fingertips several times until he relaxed and straightened.
“She’s alive.”
Daniel stared at him, hardly believing it. He shoved Lewis’s arm aside and put his ear to her heart. Faintly, as light as a bird, he heard it beat. He tried to stand but his legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees.
“Daniel, look. A breath.”
Daniel looked up at Lewis, who watched Isla closely. They waited for what seemed an eternity, and then Daniel, too, saw the subtle rise and fall of her chest.
Lewis’s brows drew down in confusion. “She breathes every thirty seconds.” He looked at Daniel. “What is this?”
Daniel shook his head, his eyes gritty. “She hasn’t shared details, only that it involves her sister and a witch who was in London nearly a year ago before leaving for Port Lucy.”
Lewis nodded grimly. “And she needs the cure from the witch who cast it.”
“How do you know that?”
Lewis lifted a shoulder. “My mother is a Light Magick witch. She says I have some of her traits.” He smiled. “Why do you think I’m such a good medic?”
Daniel shoved himself upright and pulled the desk chair to her bedside. “I do not know if this is normal for her or if it’s gotten worse.”
“And she’s had it a year?”
“Nearly a year, she said.” He shook his head. “Her friend tracked the dark witch’s movements and discovered enough details about the curse to determine that Isla must have the cure immediately or it may become irreversible. She will be in this state every night.”
Lewis frowned. “Not only irreversible, I’m afraid. If it is at all similar to other curses with a deadline, she may not survive it at all.”
“It will kill her outright?”
“More likely she would be like this day and night—not dead, not quite alive—forever.”
Daniel stared at him. “What can we do?”
Lewis lifted his mouth in a small smile. “We are going to help the good doctor find her cure. And then I suppose I’ll watch you try to court her.”
Daniel scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Lewis looked pointedly at Daniel’s hand, which clutched the sleeve of her nightdress.
He forced his fingers loose. “I hardly know her.”
Lewis raised a brow. “Are you this concerned about all the people you hardly know?”
Daniel’s chest began to loosen by degrees, as though his mind and body finally accepted Isla wasn’t dead. He shrugged, exhausted. “I don’t know what it is. Perhaps I’m tired. Perhaps I’ve been too long without the company of a woman of society.”
Lewis grinned. “My mother believes in soul mates. Two halves of the same whole and all that rot.” He clapped Daniel’s shoulder and stood. “I am hoping I possess my own soul in its entirety. So much simpler.” He walked to the door and turned, sobering. “Awaken me at once if anything changes. Tomorrow I suggest we have her tell us all the details. We need to know what we’re up against. She may not be thrilled about the suggestion, but Quince and Bonadea are both a wealth of information, and the more people she has aiding her cause, the better her chances of success.” He shook his head. “Entirely too independent for her own good, that one. Needs to learn to allow others to help.”
“Thank you for coming so quickly. I didn’t know what to do.” The admission cost him dearly, because he was a man who always knew what to do.
“Get some sleep, my friend.”
He nodded. “I will.” Daniel’s throat was raw, and his exhaustion had reached new heights.
Lewis quietly exited through Daniel’s cabin, and the room was still again.
Daniel reviewed the events of the last thirty minutes or so, from the time he’d left the wheelhouse. He’d known it from the first moment that first day when she’d stood before him and threatened her way onto his ship. He’d known then somehow that she would upend his life, and it had already begun.
He didn’t believe in supernatural foresight, or fate, or anything that flew in the face of his well-honed senses of logic and pragmatism. When he’d thought she was dead, however, he’d felt as though his heart had been pulled from his chest. He tried to tell himself he would have been just as horrified to walk into Quince’s cabin and find him lifeless. It was a useless endeavor to convince himself that was true. Somehow he couldn’t envision himself being so far gone in grief that he would clutch the old man’s nightshirt.
He straightened and stood, stretching his cramped legs. “I need to sleep,” he muttered and looked down at her still form. “Isla Cooper, we have much to discuss tomorrow.” First on his list of complaints would be that she neglected to tell him that when she said she “slept as though dead” that she slept as though dead.
He reached down, brushing her hair away from her face and settling her blankets. He looked at her face, peaceful but still appearing so lifeless that his heart thumped hard, and he waited interminably to see her chest rise and fall with a breath.
With a heavy sigh, he returned to his cabin. As exhausted as he was, he ought to have been able to drift immediately into oblivion, but Lewis’s words tumbled around in his brain until he thought he’d go mad. If she couldn’t find a cure in time, she may sleep forever. The thought of her lying alone in the next room, barely breathing and having lived her life believing she could depend on only herself made him feel ill. He muttered a curse and yanked his blankets off the bed. He crossed his cabin to the window seat and lifted the long cushion, dragging it with him into the other room.
He settled the cushion on the deck next to her bunk and tried to make himself comfortable on it, although it was a foot too short. It wasn’t any worse than the sleep he wasn’t getting in his bed, though. His breathing deepened, his exhausted muscles grew heavy, and for the first time since the eternally long day had begun, he relaxed.