“He doesn’t have reins, so I can’t steer—oh, thank you,” she said as Benedict placed her in one of the chairs. He didn’t sit down himself, but remained standing behind her chair. “Could you stand somewhere else instead of hovering over me?”
“No.”
“He’s guarding me from you,” Isen Turner explained, seating himself across from her. “Benedict? Why are we feeding her?”
“She believes she’s going to pass out due to overuse of her Gift, which is a type of mind-magic that allows her to hide in plain sight. She claims that eating delays or mitigates the effects of this overuse.”
“Ah. I’d rather you didn’t pass out,” he said to Arjenie.
“Well, I’m going to, but food will help. He wouldn’t let me have my candy bar.”
“We can do better than a candy bar, I think. If you—ah, yes, Carl, come in.”
Carl wasn’t invisible after all. He was tall and lanky, with gray hair and creases in his leathery skin. He was silent, though, handing Arjenie a plate with two fat sandwiches, then leaving without saying a word.
Arjenie peeked under the bread. Roast beef with thick slices of tomato. She loved roast beef. “Thank you,” she said, and dug in.
“Report,” Isen Turner said.
Clearly and concisely, Benedict described what had alerted him to an intruder, how he’d found her, what she’d said, what he’d observed. Arjenie listened as she ate, fascinated. He finished about the same time she did, and she twisted around to look up at him. “That was well done. I’ve an excellent memory, but I’m not good at summarizing. I tend to include too many details.”
“Thank you,” he said gravely. “Would you care to add anything?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, turning back to face his father. “No, wait, I think there’s one thing you should know. Robert Friar is clairaudient. Can I call my aunt now?”
Isen Turner’s eyebrows lifted. “Friar’s a Listener? And how do you know this?”
“I can’t tell you, but he’s exceptionally strong, only for some reason he can’t Listen in here at your clanhome. I really need to call my aunt.”
“And yet I have to insist that you do add a few of those details you tend to include in your summaries. I need to know what was in those vials and what you did with it.”
“Nothing that can possibly hurt you or anyone here.”
He shook his head sadly. “That’s not good enough. What if you’re wrong? What if you’re lying or misled or simply mistaken?”
She nodded. “We do have a problem. I can see why you can’t take me at my word, but I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
“There’s a difference between can’t and won’t.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees—and everything about him changed. “I’m going to have to help you find that difference.”
Arjenie flinched back in the chair, eyes wide. It wasn’t the words, it was the way he looked—implacable, unreachable. As if he would do anything necessary to make her answer his questions. Anything. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I know the difference, and I can’t.”
“You were at our enemy’s house last night,” he said in that cast-iron voice. “You show up here tonight, playing mind tricks on my people and armed with some sort of potions. You will tell me why.”
Oh, this was not going to be pleasant. She pressed her lips together.
“You realize I have complete control of what happens to you, don’t you? It’s not hard to make a body disappear in the mountains.”
“B-Benedict?” she whispered—then wondered why she’d done that. He would be on his father’s side. On his clan’s side, and he had no reason to think she’d come here to save them, not harm them, and she couldn’t explain.
“I’m here,” he said from behind her. And then, even more tersely: “Isen.”
Isen Turner’s gaze flicked up to meet his son’s eyes—then locked on as if magnetized. One heartbeat, two, three …
A knock on the door interrupted their staring contest.
“Come in,” the Rho said.
The door on Arjenie’s left opened. Automatically she looked to see who was here—and did some staring of her own.
She’d seen a lot of bare male chests tonight, a lot of hunky men wearing not much, and a few wearing nothing at all. But this man … oh, my. His spicy brown hair was shaggy and disheveled. He needed a shave. He was scowling. He was oh-my-God beautiful.
“Sorry it took me so long,” the beautiful man said, not sounding apologetic at all. “I wasn’t home, so I didn’t get word right away. What do you need?”
“What do you see?” Isen Turner said, and gestured at Arjenie.
Blue eyes locked on her like twin lasers.
This had to be Cullen Seabourne—who was a lupus and also a sorcerer. Which meant he could see …
“I don’t recognize the Gift,” he said after a moment, “but I recognize the heritage. Elf. Not pureblood, maybe not even half, but she’s part-sidhe.”
Dizziness swung through Arjenie, not in a slow tide but fast. Oscillating. Picking up speed with each swing.
“Uh-oh,” she said. And passed out.
SIXTEEN
THE orthopedic surgeon was a string bean—an inch taller than Rule and at least forty pounds lighter. His brown hair was thinning on top; his eyes were that peculiar pale blue that almost vanishes next to the black of the pupils. His lips were thin and so pale that, like his irises, they nearly disappeared. He reeked of disinfectant soap with a faint undertone of tobacco. His name was Robert Stanton.
Rule disliked the man, but he was a top-flight surgeon in his field, according to Nettie, and that was what mattered.
“… recovering well from the surgery,” Stanton was saying, “but I cannot say precisely when you can be released. Certainly not until after the skin graft, and I have explained why the wound must be left open for a few days. Dr. Cummings will perform that procedure. Has he been by to speak with you?”
The back of Lily’s hospital bed was elevated so she could sit up. She looked weary and hurt and pale and pissed. “Yeah. Gold-rimmed glasses, dark skin, deep voice. Talks slow.”
The plastic surgeon had made his rounds early, arriving before seven this morning, about the same time that Rule received a call from his father. Rule hadn’t passed on the details of that call to Lily yet. First the nurse had come in with her pain medication—which Lily had only taken half of—then her surgeon had arrived.
“Er—yes,” Stanton said, “that is Dr. Cummings. You can have every confidence in him. Now, before I go I need to speak with you about your prognosis. I must caution you that it is unlikely you will regain full function of the arm.”
Lily’s head jerked back. Her eyebrows snapped down. “Why not? You said the surgery went well.”
“It did. Barring infection, I expect the bone to knit sufficiently for limited use in six to eight weeks. It doesn’t fully harden in that time, you understand. However, you lost muscle, and there was nerve damage. I do not believe the nerve damage was so extensive that you won’t see any regeneration, but such regeneration is a slow process and the extent is difficult to predict.”
“Give me a ballpark figure. Eighty percent of normal? Sixty? Ninety?”
“There is no ‘ballpark’ for these sorts of injuries. You should regain the use of the arm. If you are disciplined with your therapy, you may regain much of its function, but it will likely always be weaker than it was. I cannot say how much weaker. The difference may be acute. It may be negligible. Most likely, it will fall somewhere between those extremes.”