Kristan took a slow breath and let it out. “Dane never made it back. He’s gone.” She paused while she filled the syringe with the right dose.
“Gone, as in...? How does she know?” Noah’s instinct was to sit up, but his conscious mind smacked it down and he was forced to lie helpless in the face of the news.
“I just know that’s what she said when she told me we couldn’t go home. He never came back. They don’t know where he is. He’s gone.” Kristan cast a frightened glance at him as she changed his IV bag.
“I’m not going to be the one to tell Lindsay.”
“No.” Noah could see that would to be a bad choice. “I will. After the healer.” He shouldn’t wait, but he needed to be in one piece—or close to it—to deal with the aftermath. “It was my fault anyway, I’m sure.” He could do math.
“Don’t say that.” Kristan slid the needle through the membrane on the IV port and pushed slowly, dumping morphine into the line. “It wasn’t your fault. Dane’s a big boy.”
“Easy for you to say.” A golden glow was already seeping into Noah’s veins.
“Because I’m right. Don’t let them put any bullshit on you, Noah.” Kristan started to clean up. “Dane made his choices. So did Lindsay. You didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
Noah would have argued, but he didn’t want to waste a moment of feeling this good. “Sure,” he mumbled. “Hope everyone else agrees.” Suddenly, he wasn’t looking forward to the healer the way he had been. There was more of the same hell on the other side of healing. They were going to have to go through.
Going around wasn’t an option from here.
The glow only lasted so long, but if Noah breathed shallowly and didn’t move, he could string it out for another hour. He tried not to wonder where Lindsay was, getting tense made it worse. Blessedly, he dozed, aware of sleeping and yet not awake enough to experience all the pain he was in.
Footsteps cut into his carefully constructed haze. Lindsay’s footsteps. Noah made himself stay still.
Moving would make him sorry, and he wanted a little more good before he had to tell Lindsay what had happened to Dane.
“The doctor’s here.” Lindsay came to stand beside the bed. “Noah, this is Dr. Rajan. She’s here to help.”
Noah waited until Rajan came into his line of sight, narrowing his eyes to focus on her. A mage, then, and a doctor. “Good. It’ll be a day too soon if I never have to see a bedpan again.” He was done being helpless. It felt different than when they’d tried to heal him before, when he’d begged them not to do it, to let him die.
“Be grateful,” Lindsay said dryly, stepping back to let the doctor see him. “Beppe could’ve insisted on a catheter.”
“Been there, done that.” Noah wanted to laugh, but it would hurt. “What now?”
“No bedpans.” Dr. Rajan put her bag down and took out a vial of hand sanitizer. “I’ll see how strong you are, and we’ll go from there.”
“I’m strong enough.” Noah’s stomach clenched at the idea that she would leave without making all this pain go away. There wasn’t time for him to lie around being hurt. Lindsay was going to need him.
“I’ll decide that.” She looked over her shoulder at Lindsay. “The pain medication you said you had isn’t here. Can you get that for me? I need to double-check what you’re using. Also towels and cloths and clean water. Please bring up the white box from my trunk, as well.”
Lindsay nodded. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and Noah knew it was more for him than the doctor.
“May I?” Dr. Rajan reached out to draw back the covers.
“Go ahead.” It wasn’t like dozens of people hadn’t seen him in various states of damage and undress already, since he’d first fucked it all up.
“I don’t think we need to pretend this is your first rodeo,” she said, pulling away the covers. She was gentle, loosening the sheets where they stuck without hurting him too much.
“No, it’s not.” More shame. That was what he needed. It was his fault that things had been difficult the first time, even though he couldn’t change who and what he was. He still wasn’t over being angry at his father for not listening when Abram took him from the hospital where the mundane physicians had decided there was nothing else they could do to save him.
Rajan stripped him bare and went over him with a clinical expression that never flinched. Her hands traced lines on his body, following a map only she could see. Noah knew she wasn’t looking at his physical body but at the other one, the one that was so much harder to heal.
He had been at death’s threshold more than once and tried to step across every time so Elle wouldn’t be alone there, but no one would let him go. Not his magic, not his father, not even Rose. His body couldn’t cross over, his magic held the life in it, but his heart and soul had tried ceaselessly to reach her. There was no healing him without their cooperation, no matter how the healers fought him. It had been a long walk back to the land of the living for his heart and soul, and there had been no reason for the journey until Cyrus had said the words: this one is yours.
“You look well.” There wasn’t any sarcasm in Dr. Rajan’s voice. She inspected his feet, touching pressure points and meridians. Finally, she looked almost optimistic.
A light tap-tap on the door signaled Lindsay’s arrival. He slipped in, carrying a stack of towels and a box filled with amber-colored bottles. “Kristan will be in with the water and that box in a minute.”
“Thank you, dear.” Dr. Rajan straightened and went to her bag, where she began rummaging around.
“Put it down on the table. Then you can say goodbye to your friend and get yourself downstairs for a bit.
Maybe go for a walk.”
Lindsay didn’t look happy about it, but he set the towels and box on the table and came over to the bed. He touched the side of Noah’s head, cool and gentle on Noah’s hot skin, and looked down at him, a frown furrowing his pale brow.
“Will it make a difference if I tell you to get well?” The frown softened slightly and he gave Noah a tentative smile.
“Can’t hurt.” Trying to smile back to reassure Lindsay, that hurt.
“Then get well.” Lindsay hesitated before leaning over and kissing Noah on the temple where his skin was still whole. “For me, if you don’t want to do it for yourself.”
“I will.” Noah couldn’t do less. Lindsay had chosen to save him and had lost Dane as a result. Noah couldn’t let that go.
“I’ll be outside.” Lindsay wrapped his arms around himself, trying to give himself some comfort that way, without Dane or Noah to do it for him. He turned and left the room quickly.
Noah didn’t want him to go, but he understood. The last thing they needed was to get Lindsay’s magic knotted up with his own and healed into him. It would take someone like Rose, or someone even stronger, to get them undone. Now was not the time for that kind of mistake.
“Okay, here’s your stuff.” Kristan came in with her arms full—a case of water bottles on top of a white box. “Whatever it is.”
“Only what I need.” Rajan pointed at the floor by the bed. “Right there. And get yourself some gloves.”
The look on Kristan’s face made Noah laugh out loud, and he regretted it immediately when he started to cough.
“Enough of that.” Rajan came over and put one hand on his chest, one on the back of his neck. They felt like they were covered in tiny needles, and she pushed against his skin. The cough faded and Noah could feel his throat and lungs opening. “I can’t have you coughing like that while I’m working.
You...Kristan. Pull a bag and a carton of cleaning wipes out of the white box.”
“I’m doing what with this?” Kristan shook out a bag with a biohazard symbol on it.
“Well, there will be a loss of damaged flesh,” Rajan said. “It needs to be disposed of, it’s not safe to leave things like that where they can be found and used.”