“Sorry. I’m trying to figure this all out.” I stood. “It’s so…frustrating.”

“Promise me you’ll tell me everything you find out.”

“I promise. I won’t hide anything from you.” At the door, I reached for the light.

“Leave it on. Please.”

Theo’s heart monitor showed a fast but regular rhythm. Dr. Lincoln and Johnny were talking in hushed tones, but stopped when I stepped into the room. Nana was coming up the stairs and followed me in. Celia sat on the edge of the bed holding Theo’s hand. “What do we know?” I asked.

“She had a blood clot; it’s common with leg or pelvis injuries. She ‘threw’ it; it hit her lung. We need an ambulance to get her to the State Shelter where they can perform the emergency surgery she needs.”

“No,” Johnny said. “They have a spell.” He gestured at Nana and me.

“How soon can you do this forced-change ritual?” the doctor asked.

I glanced at Nana. She went to the window seat, leaned and looked up, then stepped back and looked out through the skylights, positioned herself by Theo’s bed, calculating. “About twenty hours from now, the waning moon will be shining through those skylights again. Or we could move her to where the rising moon shines on her.”

“No. Don’t move her.” Dr. Lincoln pursed his lips, and his fingers twitched as he figured in his head. “Look, you have to understand. Without proper radiological testing—” He stopped himself, obviously remembering his audience wasn’t savvy with medical terms. “Without an X-ray or scan, I can’t begin to guess the size of the clot.

I can guess at the location because I can hear the obstruction, but…” He took a deep breath, then said, “Best case: this thing breaks up on its own in the next few hours, but I know for a fact the chances of that are slim.”

“How can you be so sure that’s a fact?” Johnny pressed.

“A pulmonary embolism killed my wife.” His tone was bitter. “The right ventricle of the heart pumps blood to the lungs to get oxygen, and with the clot there, the ventricle will start to fail as it tries to push blood past the blockage. This kind of scenario has a ninety percent mortality rate. Or she could keep throwing clots.” He rubbed his brow.

Johnny took the doc’s biceps in his hand and stared down at him. “What can you do to give her twenty hours?”

The doc considered it. “She needs surgery, but I can’t perform it. Short of that, she needs oxygen. I have tanks, and I think the nasal cannula for a large dog will work for her.” He looked at me. “I’ll stay here and try to buy her a day.”

“But should we wait,” I asked, “until she’s a little stronger?”

“She’s not going to get any stronger.”

Johnny released the doc and took me by the shoulders. “Either she makes it or she dies trying, Red. She’d risk it, and you know it. All or nothing—that’s how Theo has lived her life.” He released me. “And that’s how she’d want to die.”

I looked at Theo’s face, my eyes burning. “I don’t know if—”

“You have to try,” he whispered. “She’ll die for sure if you don’t.”

Did we have what it took to turn away death?

I woke around ten, but I didn’t feel rested. That sucked, because there was so much work to do.

Downstairs, Dr. Lincoln snored loudly in my cozy chair, and Johnny lay stretched over the ends of my couch. Vivian’s chair had been moved to the living room and lowered to its side; one of my worn tan pillows was under her head. She smelled vaguely of valerian. I’d told Johnny about the bottle, and he’d spritzed her with it.

Nana was sitting in the kitchen studying the Codex. A cigarette rested in an ashtray beside her, and the whole of it was one continuous piece of ash. She’d found something so interesting that she’d forgotten the Marlboro.

The aroma of coffee enticed me immediately. As I fixed a bowl of microwave oatmeal, I saw the valerian bottle sitting by the stove. I opened a drawer, took out a marker, and wrote 40 Winks on the bottle. Didn’t want anyone drinking that. With my favorite coffee mug (with Waterhouse’s “Lady of Shalott” on it) and my oatmeal, I sat across from Nana. “Find something interesting?”

Nana reached for her cigarette and swore when she saw it was wasted. “Did I find something interesting,” she repeated slowly, sitting back in her chair in a way that said she was stiff from hours hovering over the book. I don’t think she’d returned to bed. “You don’t appreciate what this book is,” she added angrily. Her leg had started bouncing in irritation; I guessed it was an action I was genetically engineered to copy.

She hadn’t slept and she was grumpy, so I made an extra effort to stay calm. “I don’t understand what it is. Explain it to me.”

Nana put her hands on the pages reverently. “In layman’s terms, this book is, to witches, the equivalent of the Holy Grail or the Cauldron of Annwfn.” She overpronounced the funnily-spelled Celtic word: An-OO-ven.

Okay, that impressed me. That I understood; I mean, Arthur and his men had sought the powerful pearl-edged cauldron, and he had considered the Grail one of the holiest of holy relics. “But I’ve never heard of the Trivium Codex.” Or the Lustrata, for that matter.

“That’s my fault, I suppose.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No. I mean it. I never told you our legends and fables, witches’ lore.”

“Why not?”

She sighed heavily, and I could feel her anger dispersing with the sigh. “That was your mother’s job.” She put her hand on mine. Nana wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of person. Not that she never hugged me; she did. She’d just never been overly physical with her affections. So the simple gesture meant a lot. “I did the best I could by you, y’know.”

“I know, Nana.” But I hadn’t known she resented my mother’s leaving as much as I did.

“If I’d known…if I’d seen then what you could become, I’d have prepared you better.” She pulled away and carefully took another cigarette out of her case.

“I’m not sure I believe this whole Lustrata thing anyway.”

She stared at me as she lit the cigarette. The angry bounce of her leg had returned. “I can only take so much guilt, you know.” She blew smoke at the ceiling. “If I’d told you the stories, you’d be proud to step into the role, but as it is—you’re blind.” She paused. “The Elders Council will never believe it. The Codex and the Lustrata in the same day.”

At the mention of the Council, my appetite disappeared. “You haven’t called anyone, have you?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t.” I stood and took my bowl to the sink.

“But Seph—”

“Don’t, Nana. I mean it. Just don’t. Swear to me.”

“But why not?”

“The last thing I need right now is more people staring at me like I just sprouted tentacles and they’re not sure if they should be fascinated or horrified. And Vivian indicated that there were less-than-honest members among the Elders, that they were involved in Lorrie’s murder. I don’t need to blatantly identify myself to them.”

“I don’t believe a word she says.”

“Just keep it to yourself. All right?” Without waiting for an answer, I walked away. I might have felt better if Nana had at least scolded me for accepting the contract on Goliath. Did being the Lustrata nullify the need for guilt? If so, that was proof that I wasn’t the Lustrata. And if not, then the Lustrata must learn not to feel anything. If that’s the case, count me out.

Nana followed me. “What is wrong with you?”

“I feel like I’m playing some nightmarish game of tag. Everyone keeps telling me I’m it and nothing can undo the fact. I don’t want to be it. Being it scares me.” As a kid, playing that game, I’d always hated being it. When running after the others and trying to tag them, I always felt like we were running from some monster and I was in the back, the first one the monster was going to get.

“Why does that scare you?”