Page 87 of The Witch They Fear

"Don't move your right side, Miss Dellaby." A different voice, older, female. A nurse, somewhere by my feet, doing something with a chart. "Your shoulder is in a sling. We'd like it to stay there until the swelling reduces. Are you in pain?"

Of course I am in pain. "I'm… managing."

I'm lying. Everything fucking hurts.

"That is not what I asked."

"I'm—" I swallow. The swallow drags through my throat and finds the bandage there, and underneath the bandage the place where teeth went in. It throbs in time with my pulse. "Eight."

"I'll bring you something. Don't try to sit up."

She moves out of my peripheral vision and through a door that clicks shut behind her. I close my eyes. I open them.

Aamon is in the corner of the room.

Just standing there. Arms crossed. Back against the wall opposite my bed. I don't think he has moved an inch since I opened my eyes. All in black like he is always in black. Sleeves rolled to the forearms, those angular lines of his tattoos visible. His face is doing something. Or not doing something. From here I cannot tell which.

Like a damn statue. A pissed-off, stone-still statue.

His thumb is pressed against his bottom lip.

That's new.

I would think harder about it but my head is full of cotton. I close my eyes again.

When I open them my magic is reaching for him. Faint. Far down. Whatever's in the IV is sitting on it like a hand on a candle, but it is reaching anyway. He shifts in the corner. The thumb leaves his lip. By the time his eyes meet mine he is Professor Aamon again.

"You're awake again."

His voice is level.

It is so level it sounds like nothing. Like he’s reading a label off a jar.

"What happened?" I say. Because I have to start somewhere. "Where—"

"The library." Zeva, from my other side. "Third floor. I found you."

The library.

I close my eyes.

It comes back the way memory comes back when your head is full of cotton—out of order, in pieces, none of it labeled. A girl whimpering into a hand. Pale green-gold hair sliding down a stack and bolting. A vampire's shoulder going black. The smell. My shoulder coming out of its socket. A wall against my back. Teeth.

Teeth.

Then a blur.

A boot. A hand on the floorboards next to my head, knuckles split. Storm-blue eyes.

You took my blood, witch.

A fist coming down.

Sorry Hex.

Oh.

I open my eyes. The ceiling is where I left it. So is Aamon. So is Zeva.