"What…was that?" she heard Cain say between breaths. He hadn't noticed DG turning away from him and grabbing at her upper arm. With the lack of adrenaline, the sharp pain that she had felt on the rooftop came back with full force. DG had a pretty good tolerance for pain, but this was beyond the realm of anything she'd felt before. Her mind began to go hazy on the edges.
"You alright?" Cain asked, worry evident in his voice. He rolled her over to face him to find a six-inch gash on her arm and her eyes going cloudy. "C'mon. I need to get you to your mother."
With that she felt herself being scooped into his arms and carried away to a destination unknown to her, the pain beginning to race up to her shoulder and down to her fingers all the while. She let her eyes flutter closed and her head lean on the Tin Man's chest. She knew that he was still uncomfortable with touching, but she was just so tired….
"DG, my angel, wake up," said the voice the plagued her dreams not so long ago seemed to be at it again, except this time it sounded very, very scared and very, very close.
DG let her eyes flutter open for a moment, but then her lids seemed to close of their own accord. She felt a hand land delicately on her cheek and bid her lids to open again. She successfully willed them to stay open this time, but soon herself spinning in an intense case of vertigo. He hands searched for purchase only to find…wood? She turned her head to the side to find herself lying on a desk. The skirts of her mother's dress covered up most of the room from her view, but she could see that she was in her mother's office, lying on her mother's desk. Pain shot through her arm once more and the memories of the wind and voice crashed into her like they were on a speed test and her brain was the wall. She sat up with the aid of Ahamo's arm for support. Only then did she look around at the multitude of anxious faces peering at her from around the room.
"What happened?" She couldn't find anything else to say. The faces around the room glanced at each other as if silently wishing she hadn't asked. They all knew very well how headstrong DG could be.
"We were attacked," DG turned her eyes to her mother, "by dark magic much stronger than that of the witch's." Everyone knew which witch because her memory was so freshly burned into his or her brain.
"How many evil witches can there be? Me and Az can take care of her."
"This one wasn't a witch," Glitch piped from a seat near a table and a stack of books.
This seemed to be the information everyone was waiting for as they all turned their heads to him. It seemed as though Glitch was having a thorough Ambrose moment as he quickly translated and simplified the Ancient text in his hands.
"With the evidence we have of the wind and what trying to heal DG's arm did to our friend, Raw, I believe I can say we have hit a snag in the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…. Cain pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning on and shook Glitch's shoulder to get him to stop glitching.
"What happened to Raw?" DG asked, searching the room for any sign of his furry attire and kind eyes.
"When he tried to heal you, DG, whatever spell that was placed on your injury ended up taking a few layers of skin off of Raw," he said, almost nonchalantly.
"Wait, what?" She looked down at her arm, then back to Glitch.
"Azkadellia took him to the hospital wing. We didn't want him getting wounded again if the spell rubs off on any victim. You're both going to have to heal the old-fashioned way," Ahamo said from behind her.
She was almost getting whiplash from trying to look at who was speaking to her. The four people she considered to be almost everybody important in her life seemed to be spread about the room, when they had in all actuality been quite close to the desk that was being substituted for a bed at the moment. The spell was warping her depth perception, and the pain was slowly, but steadily, working it way up to her throat. The changes were so subtle, that DG couldn't tell the difference from when she was perfectly spell-free and now. The changes would eventually consume her, but this spell wasn't one to be found in any book that Glitch could read.
"Please continue, Glitch," The Queen said. She had taken name change smoothly, and seemed partially amused by this new version of her old advisor.
"It says here that one who can control any of the four elements is known as an Elemental. There are only four to have ever existed, and that was long ago. They can go either to light or to dark, it's up to the individual Elemental." Glitch continued.
"Well, let's hope the others are on our side," Cain mumbled from his spot against the wall.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cain?" asked the Queen.
"If that thing has enough power to harm DG from hundreds of miles away, then what could four of them do?"
"This has been the first sighting in thousands of years," quipped Glitch. "And seeing as the last known encounter with the Elementals ended with the supposed extinction of them, it's crucial to point out that we are either dealing with a set of very old or very young people."
"Very old as in they never died, and very young as…." DG's thought process was trying to keep up.
"As in their descendants may not even know what they are. Magic can go unidentified for a very long time, even through generations," Glitch finished.
"We must find the others," the Queen's voice was commanding and worried.
"Wait, we don't even know what—" DG started, but couldn't finish. The searing pain ripped at her entire arm and into her neck as her eyes rolled up into her skull. She felt her father's arm tighten around her shoulders, and her mother place her hands on either side of her face.
"We're here. All you need is to come find us…." The slimy voice was all DG heard before she felt consciousness slip from her.