The best bargain of all. He was a magician, all right. By using only smoke and mirrors, he had somehow managed to banish the last of her panic.
That was when something really odd happened. Speaking with brisk authority, Kathryn ordered the rest of the surgical team out of the room. Murmuring in puzzlement, they filed out. As the last of them left, the scent of someone else’s blood—Pia’s blood—filled the air.
Aryal said out loud, “What the fuck are you guys doing back there?”
“Hold on a few moments longer, Aryal,” said Kathryn somewhat breathlessly. “You’re doing an awesome job. We’re almost finished.”
A new Power began to fill Aryal’s body, and it was simply ravishing, cool like moonlight and exquisitely clear, like the finest crystal. It filled her entirely and took all the pain away, all of it, and bathed her spirit tenderly with the finest hope.
“My God,” Kathryn said. “Will you look at that.”
While Aryal heard the words, they didn’t hold any meaning for her. She was lost in rightness and a floating sensation like freedom. Through it all she watched Quentin as he swallowed hard.
Vaguely she grew aware that Dragos was speaking again. This time, quite unlike his beguilement, his tone was harsh and commanding. “Nobody speaks about what just happened in this room. Not to anyone, do you understand?”
Quentin’s gaze shifted from Aryal’s face to the people who stood behind her. She watched as his expression turned careful. He nodded.
“I’m bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, and I’ve already given you my promise,” Kathryn told him. “I won’t say a word.”
“See that you keep it,” Dragos said. He never had to say “or else.”
Aryal turned her head as Dragos and Pia walked out.
Then Kathryn laid a hand at the back of Aryal’s neck and squatted to look her in the eyes. The surgeon pulled down her mask. Her honey brown gaze was teary, and she was beaming. “We’re done,” Kathryn said. “Everything looks so much better than I could have hoped.”
She shivered spasmodically. “It looks good?”
“It looks more than good. It looks amazing.” Kathryn kept a steady, firm pressure on the back of her neck. “But I’m going to tell you something before I let you up, and you need to listen. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“What happened just now is a miracle, and I do not use that word lightly. From the hopeless mess that I first saw to what I sense right now—there’s no comparison.” The surgeon’s expression sobered. “So pay attention when I say this to you. Do not take any chances with this opportunity. Your wings were so bad I was convinced you would never fly again. Now you have a real shot, but you must stay out of the air for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” she whispered. Her mind went blank. She had never been out of the air for two weeks in her very long life.
Kathryn’s eyes were sharp and stern. “You’re a big girl. You can make your own choices, and I don’t order my patients around. It’s up to you whether or not you decide to take my advice. But you have injured and then reinjured your wings. If you don’t give your body a real chance to recover, you might rip away everything of the very great gift that has just been given to you. You are not cleared for work. No crises, no excuses, no exceptions.” The doctor paused to let her words sink in. “Do you understand what I have just said?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good.” Kathryn patted her. “Now I’m going to release the numbing spell and let you sit up. I want you to shapeshift back into your human form and stay that way for fourteen days.”
Aryal and Quentin looked at each other. Quentin said, “She will.”
It would be fourteen days before she knew for sure whether or not the miracle had taken hold.
Before she knew if she could fly again.
Fourteen days.
The wait was going to kill her.
TWENTY-TWO 
When Aryal shapeshifted back into her human form and sat at the edge of the operating table, Quentin was ready with a clean set of folded scrubs. He helped her into them. Then he stroked her hair as she leaned against his chest.
Dragos and Pia had already disappeared, and so had the surgeon. The door opened, and a nurse approached with a wheelchair. “I’m here to take you to your room now.”
Aryal’s head snapped up. She stared at the wheelchair with wide-eyed repugnance.
Quentin told the nurse, “Hospitals are for sick people, and we’re going home.”
The nurse’s face froze. “Okay,” she said uncertainly. “Just wait a few minutes while I get some release forms for you to sign. I’ll be right back.”
They didn’t wait. Instead they walked slowly down the hall, arms around each other’s waists. He asked, “Your place or mine?”
“There’s awesome delivery in the Tower,” she said, enunciating each word with the carefulness of the extremely tired. “No need to cook.”
“There’s pretty awesome delivery over the bar too,” he told her.
“Then I don’t care.”
“We’ll go to my place.”
While he had waited for Aryal as she had gotten x-rayed, Quentin called Dragos’s assistant Kris, who had shown up shortly afterward with a new iPhone for each of them, each one already downloaded with all of their contacts, along with two slim wallets with expense cards and cash.
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket. The time on the screen read 8:32 P.M. He thumbed the lock off and dialed Rupert at the bar. “Hey boss,” the half troll rumbled. “Glad you’re back in town. Aren’t you a little early?”
It took a few moments for Quentin to connect. Rupert was referring to their original two-week ban from New York. He said, “Never mind that, things have changed. I’m on my way home now. Stock my fridge with food from the corner grocery, would you?”
“Sure thing,” said Rupert.
“Thanks.”
“Since we’re talking, can you answer some bar questions?”
“No.” He disconnected.
A hospital representative caught them before they could slip out one of the exits, and Aryal had to sign release forms after all.
By the time their taxi pulled up to Elfie’s, it was past ten o’clock. After the summer heat in Numenlaur, the early April evening was pleasantly sharp and chilly. The bar was going strong, which was a good thing because he just remembered he didn’t have his keys. They could slip upstairs through the interior entrance, except …
He looked at Aryal’s pale, angular features as she watched the crowd in the bar. No way was he up for that kind of explanation. Not until tomorrow. Or maybe next week. “Are you all right with waiting on the stoop while I go inside and let us through?”
“Yep,” Aryal said. She looked kind of dreamy, like she was stoned.
“Are you okay?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yep,” she said again. “I feel pretty good, considering.”
He left her and went through the bar. People hailed him, and everybody hitched to a stop, staring at his face and at the scrubs. He waved to them all, ignored the chorus of comments and shocked questions, strode through to the stockroom, let himself into his private stairwell and found Aryal sitting on the stoop outside, leaning against the corner of one wall.
He opened the door and bent over her—and found her sound asleep.
He gathered her up gently, carried her upstairs and put her, and himself, in bed.
His exhausted, overstimulated mind ran compulsively through the survival list.
Food, water, shelter, clothing.
Love.
He pulled Aryal’s sleeping form against him, tucked her head into his shoulder, put his face in her soft, clean hair and slept.