“You know him?”
“Yeah, he’s …” Martinelli trailed off as the Clark children clustered around them.
“Is the doctor a wizard?” Anna asked, wincing as her mother gave another wrenching cry.
“No,” Peter said. “You can tell because wizards’ hair is always long and silver.”
“We’re very vain about our hair,” Martinelli said in a stage whisper, leaning in and tickling the youngest (Evan? Yes, Evan) with the end of his queue. The boy giggled. His older brother touched it with a single, careful finger, eyes wide with awe.
Anna was not sidetracked. She took a shuddering breath, a sob barely checked. “But wouldn’t it be better if hewasa wizard?”
“Magic is nearly useless in certain situations,” Peter said. “This is one of them. A good doctor is worth ten omnimancers—wouldn’t you say so, Wizard Martinelli?”
“Oh, at least. Maybe twenty.”
“Definitely twenty Pentagram researchers.”
Martinelli laughed and told Anna that the doctor lived in his neighborhood and was very,verygood. Then he asked who wanted to hear a story, which naturally all the children did. Peter watched as Anna relaxed, trusting that they knewwhat they were talking about. Partway into a ridiculous tale about talking cats, Evan crawled onto Martinelli’s lap. By the end of the fourth story, the boy was asleep.
“How many children do you have?” Peter murmured, realizing he had no idea about Martinelli’s life outside work besides the fact that he was married. And had a doctor as a neighbor.
“None.”
He sounded—Peter couldn’t entirely tell what. Wistful? Resigned?
“Oh!” someone cried from the bedroom. Beatrix? A sudden, confused noise followed. Urgent voices. Then a baby’s wail.
Peter realized suddenly that he hadn’t heard Mrs. Clark for—how long? Five minutes? Ten?
He dashed to the room, heart in his throat.
She lay in the bed, pale, unmoving, eyes shut. The horror of it—what would he tell her children? What would happen to them?—rendered him unable to look away.
Then Beatrix said, “Sue, youdidit,” and took her hand. And the woman he’d thought was dead turned and sobbed into Beatrix’s arms as her husband—also crying—held the infant who could have killed her, but did not.
Yet.
Peter followed the doctor out of the room as he went to wash up. “What can we do to avoid infection?”
“Clean hands, of course,” the man said. “Keep the mother inside for at least the next week, and separate her as muchas possible from the other children for a little while so they won’t introduce?—”
Anna streaked by, too fast for Peter to catch her. She slipped past Beatrix and threw her arms around her mother. “You’re all right!” she said, repeating it like a mantra: “You’re all right, you’re all right, you’re all right …”
Peter groaned. The doctor shrugged. “The honest answer? Besides clean hands, there’s not much we can do. Life is a gamble, Omnimancer. Childbirth, doubly so. At least in this case, you don’t have to worry about the infections she might pick up from other patients.”
Later, after the doctor was convinced that Mrs. Clark could be safely left to the care of her family, Peter extracted the sleeping Evan from Martinelli’s arms.
“Thank you,” he said, unable to get anything more out over the lump in his throat.
“You owe me,” Martinelli said, raising his eyebrows.
More than he knew, unfortunately. Peter nodded.
Martinelli poked him in the arm. “I’m going to start randomly showing up and demanding things.”
This was equally alarming and funny. He grinned at the man. At his friend.
“Delightful to meet you, Omnimancer,” the obstetrician said, holding out a hand.
