It was Olga. I looked up to see her bending over the two of us, her hair in a mess. She had on a baby blue robe over a floral nightgown; I don’t know why I noticed that. She took my head between her hands—giant, strong, strangely comforting hands—and looked into my eyes.
“He survive. You survive. It over.”
But she was wrong. It wasn’t over. I’d almost gotten him killed, and it wasn’t over at all.
“Olga, can you?”
That was Claire, passing her the horrible brew. Which Olga fed me like I was a baby. It tasted as awful as it smelled, and was a complete waste of time because it didn’t do a damned—
* * *
—
The next time I woke up, the sun was shining through the curtains and Louis-Cesare was gone. For a moment, I just stared at the indentation in the mattress, at sheets that still held the scent of his body, at faint traces of blood on the duvet. And then I was up and running for the door, and bursting out into the hall—
Where Gessa was playing with the boys on the sunny boards of the landing.
I stared at them. There were blankets and toys and a large, pinkish bear that had now lost both ears but otherwise seemed to be holding up. It was regarding me quizzically, like everyone else.
I swallowed, and just stood there, swaying for a moment. “Where—”
“He fine,” Gessa told me. “He go talk to Senate. He said tell you.”
I swallowed again. “Okay.”
Stinky came over and offered me a cookie. It was half-eaten and the rest was seriously slobbered on. He was badly in need of braces—if his adult teeth ever finished coming in—and he drooled a lot.
“Thanks. I’m okay,” I told him, and went back into the bedroom.
I was not okay. I looked down to see that my hands were shaking, which was absurd. I sat down on the bed, but all I could see were bloodstained sheets. All I could hear was the sound of those bullets hitting flesh. And tearing and rending and—
My breath started coming faster, and I wondered if this was what a panic attack felt like. I didn’t know because I’d never had one. Dhampirs didn’t. Of course, dhampirs didn’t have friends or families or children or—
I got up and went to the bathroom.
My face in the mirror looked like a stranger’s: gaunt and dead white except for the burning, half-golden tint of my eyes. They looked like my father’s, when he was calling up power. They looked alien.
They looked like hers.
I cut that thought off hard. I didn’t want to think about her right now. How she’d taken over my body, and forced me to follow her commands, instead of helping him. Together, Louis-Cesare and I could have laid waste; together we could have cleared the fucking room. Instead—
I saw my lip curl, showing fang. I wanted to put a fist through the mirror. I wanted—
To look at something else, I told myself harshly. Before you give her even more control! Calm down!
I didn’t calm down, but I did look away. And let my eyes roam over the bathroom, but that didn’t seem to help. Couldn’t think; didn’t know why I’d come in here.
Until I bent over the sink, to splash some water on my face, and my ribs screamed at me.
Oh.
That was why.
I peeled off the baggy sweatpants and T-shirt someone had put on me, and checked out the damage.
The slinky jumpsuit had provided zero protection, but Louis-Cesare had drawn most of the fire and I’d been surrounded by troll. The worst I’d suffered was a bunch of weird, round bruises, peppering my stomach and thighs, from the porcupine-quill-like shrapnel thrown up by the destroyed floor. They were puffy and sore, with an angry red eye in the middle of each one. My ribs were also pissed off again, I was stiff as hell, and I felt uncharacteristically weak from the blood loss. But it could have been worse.
It could have