Jewels stifles her sobs, moving around the room.
I try to ignore her. I cannot protect her in this state. Anything I ask of her will only lead to more grief.
The quiet thud of a glass being set down on the bedside table draws my attention.
“Pinky …”
The shifter whispers so quietly I barely hear the words over the brush of her breath against my neck. She leans over my shoulder, fingers pressing lightly against the pulse point of my wrist as if to check on me. “Pinky is a friend of my mother’s … she said … she said … that you owing me a favor is the most powerful thing in the universe …”
Pinky.
Pinky?
Grinder’s Pinky?
Pinky, who offered me an open-ended favor far more valuable than the minor knowing that redirected Grinder’s fate with the smallest of nudges … Pinky, who I’ve never even met …
By the time I register what any of that could possibly mean, then manage to find the strength to roll over, the room is empty again.
A glass of liquid — presumably water mixed with one of the mage healing brews the Diné healer left behind — sits on the bedside table.
That’s … never happened before … food or liquid of any kind doesn’t get left in the room.
I stare at the glass.
I shift up on my elbow.
I glance around the room. Still empty.
I reach a shaky hand for the glass. My fingers tremble, but I’m not scared. Just weak.
The glass is too heavy. I shove the pity instantly rising at that observation to the back of my mind. I get the glass clasped in my hand. I drag it to the edge of the side table. It dips and sloshes as I pull it off the table and onto the edge of the bed. I get it to my mouth. I take a sip.
It hurts to swallow.
I take another sip, then one more.
The mage brew might actually help me if I’m taking it willingly. I want to drain the glass as if it’s my salvation. But it’s not. Not all on its own, anyway. So I take only those three little sips.
Then I very deliberately tip the glass over, hand shaking and water sloshing. I tip the glass and pour the liquid over the head of the bed, down the wall and across the blood-etched runes painted there. As if by accident, just in case anyone is watching via the cameras.
I pass out before I can get the glass back on the table, before I can wipe up the liquid and cover up what I’ve done.
Or rather, what I’ve attempted to do.
When I wake, the glass is full again. And a small black towel is tucked under my hand, under my pillow.
I take another three careful sips, then I pour the remainder of the liquid over the blood-etched runes mostly hidden on the wall at the head of the bed.
This time, I manage to return the glass to the table, then soak up the water with the towel — scrubbing at the blood runes as I do so. If I manage to smear their edges or disrupt the power embedded within them, I have no sense of it.
The wound at my neck aches, and pain streaks through my limbs with every movement. I tuck the towel under my pillow again.
But I swear that for just a moment between consciousness and sleep … I swear I feel a whisper — a cobweb-thin thread of essence — brush against my cheek.
As if the universe is reaching out — collecting Pinky’s favor through Jewels in order to do so — to set me back on course. I just have to be strong enough to follow the path when it opens up to me.
The glass is filled two more times. The towel collected and replaced. But the next time I wake, there’s no glass waiting for me on the bedside table.
