“I rented one and left it here before we left,” she said.
“Of course you did,” Bathin said with a smile.
She touched Bathin’s arm, and he turned and bent, his gaze stopping her, holding her. Then he kissed her, gently, resting his forehead on hers for a moment and murmuring something so quiet I couldn’t hear it.
Myra’s eyes were closed and she nodded, then pulled away. She searched his face, looking for something, or maybe just making sure he was okay, then she headed to the door.
“Jean?” Rossi offered. “Might I offer myself as your crutch?”
That was enough to get us all moving. There were protests and negotiations, but finally, we got all of us, except Rossi, who said he could find his way home on his own, piled into the twelve-person van, buckled in, and headed to the hospital.
Good thing Myrrhis was on duty and more than happy to see all of us. I was too tired to come up with cover stories for demon wounds.
The injuries were,thankfully, no worse than we’d thought. Jean’s ankle was a bad sprain, but not broken. Hogan’s concussion was minor. Ryder had torn his rotator cuff and was grumpy about having to wear his arm in a sling.
I had cuts and bruises everywhere, but hadn’t even noticed most of them until the doctor got busy poking.
Myra had been hiding a cut on her thigh that needed stitches. Bathin’s guts and knock on the head were on the mend, though he’d been instructed to stay off his feet, drink plenty of liquids, and get lots of sleep.
From the look Myra was giving him, she was going to make sure all of those things happened, repeatedly.
Bertie showed up, because of course she did.
“Delaney, I need a word with you.” Bertie was in all gray, but her accessories sparkled in reds and hot pinks and oranges. She looked like a phoenix who’d just crawled out of the coal bin.
I followed her out of the waiting room, where we were all waiting for the last of the paperwork to be handled, and down a short hall to a small empty room that looked like someone’s office we shouldn’t be using.
“Do you know what day it is?”
“I’ve been told it’s Tuesday. We left Sunday, before dawn. So we were gone for almost three days.
“Yes. Patrick hasn’t been back.”
“He was in hell. Sent by Goap, not the king.”
“In league with the demons?” she asked.
I wanted to say yes. Patrick had kidnapped Ryder and let him be chained and injured. Anger flared in me, wide wings that wanted destruction, but I pushed that away and tried to look at the events through more neutral eyes.
Patrick’s magic had been soured. We’d suspected the king, but Goap was a lot trickier than we’d given him credit for. Some of what Patrick had done might not have been in his control. He had said Goap had forced him to kidnap Ryder. Patrick may have only been a pawn in Goap’s plans.
It was the kindest opinion I could dredge up for him.
“I think if he was on the side of demons, he didn’t want to be,” I said.
“His videos on Ordinary have been posting.”
“And?”
“He’s been…complimentary. But he has pointed out the drawbacks of coming to a small town like ours. Spotty wireless connections. No three, four, or five-star hotels. No twenty-four hour grocery stores or restaurants. Very small selection of bars. One theater. And only a couple coffee shops.”
“Yeah, but they’re really good coffee shops. What are you telling me, Bertie? I need you to be super clear with me. It’s been a long day.”
“We neither lost nor won the bet with Robyn. He didn’t over-sell Ordinary, which means we should have an uptick in visitors who follow him, but I don’t expect people from around the world to come knocking down our doors to book a room.
“He did a remarkably clever thing. He created attention that won’t flood our resources and that is equal to that of Boring. I’m annoyed he was that capable.”
“Well, luck falls on his side, as I understand it. Maybe he’s shared a little of that with us.”
