Oh, God. That was it. That was the terrible thing she’d forgotten.
She couldn’t face it.
Her father, perceptive as usual, said: “What? What’s wrong?”
“I just remembered we didn’t all ... That is, one of us ...” She covered her eyes. “I have this co-worker, a friend, Bernie Ballantine ...”
The salient words wouldn’t come out. Her father waited politely and then picked up the conversation where it had hit a brick wall. “Nice fellow. He’s one floor up.”
“He’s—he’s here? He’sall right?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Cracked ribs and a concussion. That’s why he’s lying quietly in bed rather than visiting, but he’ll probably be released soon.”
“Your other friend—big German man, can’t recall his name, sorry—he’s fine, never even needed to check in,” her mother said, patting her hand. “Anyway, we got herebecause Alex came for us once you were in surgery.Thatwas an interesting conversation, let me tell you.”
“I can imagine,” Emily said, though actually she couldn’t. She hadn’t yet visualized a meet-the-parents dinner, let alone a meet-the-parents to inform them their daughter had been gravely wounded by wizards. “How did he persuade you he was telling the truth?”
“Had us call St. John’s to hear that an Emily Daggett really had checked in with life-threatening injuries,” her father said.
“Wait ... what?”
“Oh,” her mother exclaimed. “I suppose you didn’t know that, did you? This is St. John’s Hospital.”
Emily began to feel vague again. St. John’s University was not one of the places she’d applied to, but she knew it was on the East Coast, and presumably the hospital was nearby. “Why?” slipped out before she recollected that the person who knew was asleep.
Her mother shrugged. “It has a good reputation, doesn’t it? He must have thought this was the best hospital in the country, and since he could take you anywhere just like that—” She snapped her fingers. “Well, in any case, it’s in Baltimore. You had never been that far from home before, so of course I immediately believed him when he explained how you’d made the trip.”
“You did not,” Emily said, laughing. (She then wished she hadn’t. Whatever painkillers she was on weren’t strong enough for that.)
“I certainly didn’t believe it,” her father said. “I can see why you neglected to mention what you’d been getting up to, by the by. He popped all around the houseand levitated things, trying to prove he wasn’t pulling our legs, and I was sure he was playing an elaborate scam with an out-of-town accomplice who checked into hospitals under the targets’ daughter’s name.”
Her mother snorted. “Which is patently ridiculous!”
“No more ridiculous thanmagic, for Pete’s sake.”
“So I finally said, ‘Take me across the room, that’ll settle this.’”
“And I said, ‘Absolutely not, Helen!’”
Her mother’s eye roll came with a smile and a hand slipped into his. “So we might have still been arguing over it evennow—”
“—except your inappropriate man asked me if I’d ever worried you might try to fight evil villains,” her father said.
“‘Overlords,’ dear.”
Her father waved a hand as if to suggest that overlords and villains were using up more than their fair share of names and ought to work out a merger at the first opportunity.
Emily yawned carefully, trying to hold her back still. “What did you say to that?”
He chuckled. “‘Worried about it every day until she decided to become a history professor, of all things,’ that’s what I said.”
She gave up the battle with her eyelids and smiled into her pillow.
Her mother was laughing. “Don’t believe a word of it, Em—that’s not what your father said.”
He cleared his throat. “Was a bit more succinct, I guess.”
“And scatological,” her mother said.
