“If you’re not going to answer what I’m really asking, Christophe, just say so.” Now I regretted bringing the whole thing up. I balled up the washcloth and sighed, levering myself creakily to my feet. Washed out and emptied, everything inside me was shut down. It was a different kind of numbness, and one I liked. Even the thought of Dad didn’t hurt so much. Like pinching your leg when it’s fallen asleep. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock. Dru—”
“I want to see Ash. Then I want to look for Graves.”
“You should rest. Tonight might be difficult.”
My chin lifted. It was the “stubborn mule” look Gran chided me for so often. “I’m not the one on trial.”
He nodded as if he’d expected that. “True. But you could be a little kinder to me, little bird.”
I’m supposed to be nice to you? Then I felt guilty. He’d saved my life, more than once. I wouldn’t even be standing there in a white bedroom full of directionless light—because the sun was hiding behind clouds, and the skylights were full of blind glow—if it wasn’t for him. The locket on my chest twitched a little as the old familiar anger tried to rise. It wasn’t real anger, it was just comfortable. Right now mad was about all I knew how to do.
Even though I couldn’t truly feel anything. The crying had washed it all away. The panic-inducing, really terrible thought was still in the bottom of my head. How do you deal with something like that?
Work, I decided. There’s got to be something I can do until tonight. “I want to go to the infirmary,” I said quietly and clearly and tossed the washcloth down in the middle of the lake of drying coffee. The breakfast tray stood abandoned by the front door. “And I want to look for Graves. If he’s here, I can find him.” And if he’s not, I want to know. I want to know if he’s just kicked me like a bad habit.
“Very well.” He rose gracefully, and I had to look away. The white cloth soaked up coffee, turning a weird stained-brown. I felt bad about it for a second. I mean, I’ve been raised to clean up my own mess. Dad was big on keeping things neat. and Gran was all about everything in its place.
But they weren’t here, and I was a ghost. I almost expected to lift my hand and see the light go right through it. I’d cried everything right out of me.
I looked around for shoes. The closet had one lone pair of sneakers in it. Good luck, I guess. I almost groaned when I bent over to pick them up. If I lived to middle age I’d have so many back problems, damn.
But I might not ever look any older. The boy djamphir didn’t, except for something in their eyes. And how old was Anna?
I didn’t want to think about it.
I couldn’t even imagine being fifty and trapped inside this skinny teenage body.
The last twelve hours caught up with me with a wallop. I leaned against the closet door’s jamb and tried to catch my breath. Warm oil slid down my skin, the aspect rising like ribbons of heat through tepid bathwater when you twist the knob again to add more. The hurt all through my muscles retreated, and my teeth tingled.
It was too bad the aspect couldn’t do anything about the aches inside me. I sniffed a little bit. A crying jag will leave your nose raw and messy, but my nasal passages opened up, and underneath the lemon and fresh air in the room there was the distinct note of dust and spiced apple pie.
“Am I on trial with you, too?” Christophe asked softly.
Yes. No. I don’t know. “I trust you,” I said again. It felt like a lie. “I just . . . none of this is designed to make me a happy camper, all right?”
“Of course.” He sounded like he wanted to say something else, but let it go.
Smart of him. I got myself into my sneakers, took a few deep breaths, and the aspect retreated. I couldn’t feel the fangs anymore when I turned around and faced him.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Djamphir and wulfen both heal pretty quickly. So the infirmary isn’t a place you want to end up. If you’re hurt so bad you have to go there, it’s probably not going to end well.
Ash wasn’t in one of the curtained enclosures in the middle of the big vaulted space. He was in one of the stone-walled rooms along the sides, wrapped in white bandages and strapped down to what looked like an operating table while IVs dripped and beeping machines measured his vital signs. Heartbeat, blood pressure, brainwaves, everything.
Underneath the beeping and booping, a humming crackle ran. His fur was matted with dried blood, and the shape of his face kept changing. The slender snout would retreat, fur sliding away until you could almost, almost get a glimpse of what he would look like as a boy.
Except for the ruined jaw. You could see where the silver grains went in, and it was still seeping a weird clear fluid. His eyes were closed, and the crackle would rise in waves.
“He’s trying to change back.” Dibs had a stethoscope on his neck and the businesslike attitude he always adopted around the wounded. “Getting close to it, too. If we can keep him alive long enough to do it. We’re feeding him intravenously with five and hypodermically with fifty percent dextrose to fuel the change—”
“What are his chances?” Christophe didn’t sound impressed.
“I’m not a doctor yet, you know. They just have me attending because I’m sub enough not to set him off.”
“What are his chances?”
“About twenty percent. Better than nothing, though, right? There’s hope.” Dibs cocked his head and looked at me as if I’d been the one asking questions. “We’re doing everything we can, Dru. He’s tied down because otherwise he rips the subclavian catheter out. That’s how we’re feeding him the five percent stuff, see? And the fifty percent solution with a hypo every hour or so. He’s holding steady.”
The crackle crested again, fur running off and melting. A patch of bare pale skin showed on his chest. I held my breath. The pale spot retreated, swallowed by dark wiry hair.
Ash surged against the restraints. I found out my hands were fists. You can do it. The same thing I’d told him night after night. Come on. You can do it.
I reached forward, my fingers unloosening just a little.
“Dru.” Christophe, warning me.
I ignored him. Touched the back of Ash’s paw. Hand. Whatever. Fur flowed away, another bare patch of white skin showing like the moon behind clouds. Long elegant fingers, ending in claws that spasmodically slid free and retracted, clenched and released. It looked like the white streak at his temple was widening, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
The skin was an odd texture. Soft, like a baby’s. Like it hadn’t been exposed to a lot. It was amazing—such a kickass creature, and underneath it all, so fragile. How many times had he saved my life so far?
It was Friday, I realized. Would the wulfen do their regular weekly run tomorrow? Could I go along with them?
And when Sunday came around, would I be able to go down into the cafeteria and act like a normal girl on a coffee date or something?
Good luck with that, Dru.
“I wonder why he’s doing this.”
“Broken doesn’t mean stupid.” Dibs stared at the machines keeping track of the rhythms, his fair blond face creasing. “Maybe he knows you want to help him.”
“I shot him in the face. With silver. And then after that he wanted to kill me too, but . . .” I replayed the scene in my head. So much had happened, but I was sure of one thing—Ash had been after me before Christophe drove him away, there in the snow.
Christophe stepped closer warily. “Maybe the silver interferes with Sergej’s call. I would give much to know if he went limping back to his master and was given a new directive, or if he went to ground and the silver changed him.”