“—but theywouldsay that, and you never know ...”
“Can you wiggle your toes?”
She tried to comprehend what this had to do with anything. Knife, she recalled with great effort. Back. Moving her toes sent a dull pain through her right foot—broken?—but at least they did move.
“Yes,” she said.
Her mother let out a sigh of relief. “What about your fingers?”
With every blink, it got harder to open her eyelids again, let alone her mouth. In answer, she wrapped a shaking hand around her mother’s. Which was trembling, too.
“How do you feel?” her parents asked, almost in unison.
“Mmph,” she mumbled before slipping back to sleep.
When she woke again, apparently hours later, a nurse helped arrange her (and the various pieces of medical equipment attached to her) so she lay more comfortably on her side. He put a pillow under the cast on her left arm and offered her a cup with a straw. “Water sound good?”
Water sounded wonderful. But her raw throat protested as the liquid went down.
While the nurse checked her vital signs, she wondered—now that she felt less vague—how she had any to check. Ashburn was miles from a hospital, and surely she’d been giving off far too much anti-magic to teleport. She ought to be dead.
Well—thank goodness she wasn’t. That was enough for now. She’d found out just what an adventure entailed, but the worst of it was over.
She had the gnawing feeling she’d forgotten something, something bad. But she couldn’t put her finger on what it might be, other than having to live with the knowledge that she’d almost gotten her parents killed.
She watched them chatting with the nurse on his way out. How much did they know? Were they aware how close a call they’d had, thanks to her? Tears prickled.Her stomach churned. The heart monitor beganbeep-beep-beep-ing with alarming speed.
“Mom, Dad ...” Her voice cracked. She took another sip of water and pushed on. “It’s all my fault.”
Her father slipped a calloused, much-loved hand around hers.
“Don’t get yourself worked up, Em.” He gave her a lopsided smile, one that brought to mind the times he’d tried to see the humor in bad weather and broken farm equipment. “Think of all the poor microchips in this room.”
She gaped at him.
“Alex told us.” Her mother shook her head. “Explains a lot.”
Emily was suddenly very aware of her heart pumping in her chest. “Where—where is he?”
“Right there,” her father said, gesturing.
With help, she shifted to her other side. And there he was, slumped in a chair, eyes closed, chin on chest—deeply asleep. Dark brown stubble sprouted from his jaw and head. In one hand, he clutched his mother’s watch—someone must have rescued it from her ruined clothing. (Thank goodness.)
She ought to be angry with him, now that death wasn’t imminent and she could think about how he’d misled her. But any anger was buried deep under the mountain of relief that they’d both made it through alive.
Her father gave a small cough. “This the ‘inappropriate man’?”
“Yes,” she said, and answered his grin with a weak one of her own.
“Wouldn’t go home to sleep. Very stubborn.”
Her mother nudged him. “Like someone else I know.”
Emily could feel sleep creeping up on her again. Hoping to clear a few things up before she drifted off, she asked: “How did I get here? How did you get here?”
“Magic,” her mother said under her breath as if it had been as simple as that.
Well, she could ask Hartgrave later, or perhaps Bernie—
