I took a deep breath and knocked. Seconds ticked past. Then Jeremy opened the door. For a long moment, he just stood there and looked at me, face impassive.

A few years ago, getting a “welcome” like this would have crushed me. But now even if he stood there as calmly as if I’d returned from a coffee run, I could see the warring emotions in his eyes-as if he wasn’t sure whether to hug me, congratulate me or scream at me. In the end, he just nodded and waved me in as he held the door. When I passed, his free hand went around my shoulder, an awkward half-embrace that slid into a gentle prod as he directed me where he knew I really wanted to go, to Clay.

I saw Clay and faltered. The room was dark, quiet and empty. Tolliver was nowhere to be seen, but the room was still littered with medical supplies, as if he’d just left. Clay lay on the bed, asleep.

I don’t know what I expected. Not for him to be at the door, back to normal, furious and ready to wring my neck for taking such a risk. Nothing would have pleased me more, but that wish had been only a fleeting fancy. Still, I had hoped to find him…awake.

“The drugs, I guess, huh?” I said. “You probably had to dose him pretty good-” I stopped as my hand touched his forehead, then quickly looked at Jeremy. “He’s still warm.”

“The fever broke, but he’s still fighting the infection.”

“Infection? But-” I looked at the bandages on his arm. “Have you checked-?”

“Yes, it’s still there.”

Jeremy walked over to me, close enough to touch, but just standing beside me.

“Okay,” I said. “But that’s because the portal isn’t completely closed, I bet. It probably takes some time. We should send Nick and Antonio over, see whether anyone’s come back through. Then we’ll know it’s closed.”

Jeremy nodded, gaze down, and motioned for me to sit beside Clay while he took the chair. I made the call. Then all we could do was wait.

An hour later, Nick phoned. They’d returned to the portal site to find a growing crowd of media, police and onlookers. The three missing people had appeared shortly after Rose’s death, unharmed and dazed, remembering nothing.

So the portal was closed.

And still Clay slept, still feverish, still infected.

The others returned. They checked on Clay, but there had been no change. Jeremy told them to make ready to head back to Stonehaven. When they left, I stood clutching Clay’s warm hand.

“It didn’t work, did it?” I said.

He shook his head.

“You knew it wouldn’t. You knew Hull was lying, that closing the portal wouldn’t cure Clay. There’s no magic here, is there?”

He walked up behind me, very gently kissed the back of my head and whispered, “No.”

My knees wobbled, and I grabbed the side of the bed, but Jeremy caught my arm to steady me.

“He’ll be fine, Elena. Randall is coming back to do the debridement-cut away the infected area-”

“But that means-Tolliver said-It’ll be permanent, won’t it? Muscle damage?”

“Possibly.” He hesitated. “Probably. His arm won’t be perfect, but he’ll still have it. Right now, those are my priorities. First, that he keeps the arm. Failing that, that he keeps his life.”

I lowered myself onto the bed.

Jeremy put his hand on my shoulder. “Matthew Hull is dead. The portal is closed. Your babies are safe. You’re safe. Yes, Clay might lose muscle. Possibly even his arm. But you know what he’ll think about that?”

I looked up at Jeremy.

“That it was a small price to pay, considering what he could have lost.”

When you live in a world of magic, you come to expect magic. You can fight that, try to concentrate on what’s real, but deep down, you still hope that the flick of a wand can make everything better and everyone will live happily ever after.

Clay’s cure did come-at the hands of a doctor. Tolliver cut out the infected tissue, and found clean flesh below it. So it was over. A price paid but, as Jeremy said, a relatively small one. I only hoped Clay agreed.

He woke up later the next day, when the drugs wore off. Groggy at first, he just lay there, listening as I told him that Hull was dead. He was too weak to manage more than muttering, “You took a stupid risk, Elena.”

Then Jeremy explained what they’d done to his arm, that some of the muscle had been damaged. While he’d have plenty of physiotherapy to undergo, he’d never get his full strength back in that arm.

He took it all in, unblinking. I tensed, waiting for the dismay, the rage that this had happened, all because of a letter I’d insisted we steal. As he turned to look at me, I steeled myself for what I’d see.

He met my gaze. “Ready to go home, darling?”

News

TWO WEEKS LATER, I WAS SITTING ON THE WEIGHT BENCH in the basement at Stonehaven reading the Toronto papers Jeremy had brought me. Clay was battling the punching bag, starting the long process of training his brain to favor his left arm. I was reading the news aloud-at Clay’s request. Not that he cared about the aftermath of events in Toronto, but my reading distracted him.

As Jaime and Robert had predicted, once the portal closed, things had started getting back to normal in Toronto. It wasn’t instantaneous-no magic-wand solutions there either. But the city’s efforts to clean the water had begun working, and the rats-though still infected-had stopped rampaging. Like Clay, the city had begun the long road to recovery.

As I reached for the National Post, I rubbed my abdomen.

“Still bothering you?” Clay said, stopping.

“Just uncomfortable.”

I’d been “uncomfortable” since last night, unable to sleep and restless, an intermittent dull ache in my groin. Since our adventure in Toronto, I’d been feeling the pregnancy more-weighed down, tired and generally ready to get it over with. Nothing alarming, but Jeremy and Clay panicked every time I mentioned a stray twinge…so I’d stopped mentioning them.

I opened the paper. “The Post is blaming the provincial Liberal government for-”

A sudden gush of liquid between my legs made me jump up, those horrible miscarriage dreams zooming back from their hiding place. No, probably just another bladder leak-I’d been experiencing the joys of mild incontinence all week. Yet I hadn’t laughed or sneezed or any of the other things that normally set it off. When I inhaled, I smelled something that wasn’t blood or urine…something I didn’t recognize.

“Shit!” Clay said, turning so fast the ricocheting bag hit him in the back. “Your water broke.”

“My-?”

I looked down at the wet stain down my legs, and was still staring, not quite comprehending, when Clay started yelling for Jeremy.

So it began.

When I’d first become pregnant, Paige had offered to be my midwife. She’d done it several times when she’d still lived with her Coven. Yet when Jeremy had suspected, early that morning, that my labor had begun, he’d put off calling her. Savannah had started school, and Lucas was out of town, finishing that investigation they’d been on last month, as he tried to find the shaman a local lawyer to handle his legal case.

So Paige couldn’t throw together a bag and leave for what could be a false alarm. Jeremy postponed the call until he was sure. By then though, judging by my dilation, the babies would be here before Paige would, meaning we had to settle for a long-distance midwife.

My “discomfort” solidified into recognizable contractions. They were intense, but a few minutes apart-hardly debilitating. While Jeremy prepared tea from the brew Paige had sent, I prepared for our new arrivals.

We’d cleared out Malcolm’s old room, but hadn’t started decorating yet, so my room would stand in as a temporary nursery.