• • •
I WOKE UP because someone was looking at me. The room was dim. My body felt heavy. I was so tired. All my systems were shutting down one by one. I couldn’t tell which symptoms came from the stroke, which from the sedative. I was lost and I couldn’t pull myself together.
The soft electric glow of a floor lamp illuminated a teenage girl sitting by my bed. She was pale and blond and, against that light backdrop, her huge brown eyes stood out like two dark pools.
She was important. She was vitally important to me.
Julie.
“Kate,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “Kate?”
“Yes?” I managed.
“It’s me, Julie. Are you dying?”
I could tell she desperately wanted a different answer. “I love you.”
The expression on her face twisted something inside me.
I looked from her to Curran. “I love you so much. Both . . .”
“You can’t die.” She grabbed my hand. Tears swelled in her eyes. “You’re all I have. Kate, please. Please don’t die.”
My head hurt so much. I didn’t like that she was crying. I had to make her better. “It will be okay.”
“Kate, don’t leave me.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair!”
The door swung open.
“Do I need to put a lock on this door?” Doolittle asked.
“Come on.” Curran appeared by the bed, took Julie by her shoulders, and gently but firmly pulled her away from my bed.
“Is she dying?” Julie pulled against him.
“She will be okay,” he told her.
“What if she won’t be? What if she—”
The door closing behind them cut off the rest of her words.
I’d never felt so helpless.
“Home,” I told Doolittle.
“Soon,” he promised.
Liar. I had to get out of here. I didn’t want to end my life in this hospital bed. I had spent too long without magic, and my body was giving out. I felt weaker and weaker. They had to take me home. I wanted to die in our house. “Too long . . .”
“You’ve only been in here a few hours. It feels longer because you keep waking up despite the sedative.”
“Julie.”
“Julie will be fine. You don’t have to worry about that right now,” he said. “Focus on healing. Rest.”
• • •
I WOKE UP to pain. My brain was slow and confused. My mouth tasted like medicine. I was so tired. I was sinking deeper and deeper into the murky water of pain and exhaustion. I knew the signs. My body was giving out. Why wouldn’t they just let me go home . . .
It was night and my room was quiet. Doolittle still sat in his chair, his paperback on his lap, his eyes closed. A hair-thin line of bright orange light marked the edge of the door—someone had failed to close it all the way. Quiet voices floated into the room. I had to strain to make out the words.
“What if she doesn’t pull through?”
Julie.
“She will.” Curran. His voice was rock steady, quiet, strong, reassuring.
“Ascanio said she might be paralyzed. He said she could get amnesia . . .”
A spark of the old me fought to the surface of the pain for a brief second. Damn it, could that kid not keep his mouth shut for once?
“Don’t listen to what that idiot says. Kate wouldn’t abandon her family. That’s not who she is and that’s not what she does.”
Which Kate are we talking about? Because the one in this bed didn’t have a choice.
“But what if she doesn’t?” Julie pressed. Her voice was trembling. “She isn’t acting like herself. She’s a fighter and she isn’t even fighting. Ascanio said he heard her say she wants to go home to die.”
If I got better, that bouda was going to regret it.
“Ascanio shouldn’t run his mouth,” Curran said. “Sometimes when people have head injuries, it changes who they are for a little while. She will be back to normal soon.”
And often that change was permanent. I’d killed a man who had turned into a violent sadistic drifter after suffering a fractured skull.
“I know it’s scary. But you have to trust Doolittle. She is under heavy sedation. She just isn’t herself right now,” Curran said. “When the magic comes, Doolittle will heal her.”
“What if she never comes home? What would I . . . I won’t have anybody . . .”