I opened my arms. “C’mere, Mymy. I’m gonna be fine, and so much not as stupid. Stupider, as I was.” I made a face, my nose felt numb. Okay, maybe the morphine had kicked in. Didn’t make my sentiments any different.
She finally got up out of her chair, and sat next to me on the bed. I was still sitting too. She carefully rested her forehead against my shoulder and let me pat her back.
It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but we both needed it, so we stayed there for a long time.
I was getting sleepy, sort of fading in and out with the rhythm of her breathing and my own heartbeat and drifting thoughts, when one thing hit me.
“What kind of deal did you make with Bathin?”
“What?” She wasn’t leaning on my shoulder anymore. As a matter of fact, she was sitting in a chair again, Ryder curled up with his back toward us on the sort-of-recliner thing they’d brought into the room, his coat over his hips as a blanket. I wondered where his dog, Spud, was tonight, who was looking after him. Wondered if he was home alone in Ryder’s nice lakeside cabin or if maybe his next door neighbor the Jinn was looking after him.
“Delaney?” Myra said.
Right. I had a question. A question for her. “Bathin,” I said. “He gave me back my feelings, but he still has my soul. I know he liked keeping them from me. And you, Than said you did something, made him give them back? My feelings back? What kind of deal did you make with him, Myra? With the demon.”
“I didn’t make a deal.”
“Demon. You made a deal.”
“No.” She shifted in her chair and put down the tablet she’d been writing on. That was when I noticed she had several file folders, an accordion file, and a stack of paper spread out over the low coffee table in front of her chair. She was working at night in my hospital room.
We were going to have to talk about new rules for her too. Like there was a time of day when she was no longer allowed to work.
“I told him he owed us,” she said. “Told him he owed you and owed me to give your emotions back. Because selling off your feelings wasn’t a part of the deal you’d made with him.”
I sat there a moment, rolling that around in my head. “And he listened to you?”
“Yes, he did. I’m the law here, Delaney, and if he wants to stay in Ordinary, he’s going to have to follow the law.”
Huh. Funny how me being the law hadn’t made a bit of difference to him. I was pretty sure him doing what she said had nothing to do with her badge.
“He likes you.”
“Demon. Incapable of real emotions.”
“Does it say that somewhere in a book?”
“Several.”
“Maybe he’s different?”
“All of them are different, none of them desire anyone for anything other than pain and manipulation.”
“Right,” I said, even though I wasn’t agreeing. I wasn’t disagreeing, either—I mean, Myra knew her beans. If she said demons weren’t relationship material, I was more than willing to believe her. But I’d seen Bathin in some pretty key moments. Moments when he didn’t think I was watching him watch her.
“I think we need to keep an eye on him,” I mumbled as I felt sleep reaching up to draw me down again.
“It’s on the To-Do list.”
“Do you think he was working for Lavius?”
“He said he got jumped by Lavius. Agreed to his terms, to bring him Rossi. Said he played a part but never served him.”
“You believe that?” I did, because I knew he’d been in cahoots with Dad and Death. I was just curious as to what she’d say.
“I believe he did what he had to, to save his own neck.”
“And that’s….”
