It was rather like zipping up a ballgown, he reflected. All at once, a composure stilled her and transformed her face from flushed and crazed to, if not placid exactly, certainly something far more even-keeled.

Throe walked back over to her. Taking her shoulders, he kissed her. “That is my female. Now you are ready to proceed. No more outbursts. No matter what else is contained therein, you will allow the solicitor to finish this presentation. We do not know how to fight if we do not know what we have to fight against.”

For the Virgin Scribe’s sake, let this stick, he thought.

“Now, I shall bring him back in, yes?” When she nodded, he stepped back. “Be aware of all you have to lose. That can be remarkably clarifying.”

“You are right.” She took a deep breath. “You are very strong.”

You have no idea, he thought as he turned away.

Back at the double doors, he opened them—

Sniffing the air, he frowned and glanced around the foyer. Saxton was over by a Flemish painting, inspecting the depiction of dewy flowers upon a black background, his hands clasped behind his back, his lean torso tilted forward.

“Are we ready then?” the solicitor asked without looking up. “Or does she need even more time to compose herself? It has been over an hour.”

Throe looked about. The doors of the parlor and the study were all in the same positions they had been in. There was no one rushing anywhere. All looked . . . as it had.

But why was there a prevailing scent of fresh air all around . . . fresh air and . . . something else.

“Is there aught wrong?” Saxton inquired. “Do you wish me to return at another time?”

“No, she is ready.” He stared at the attorney, searching for some sign of . . . he knew not what. “I have calmed her.”

Saxton straightened. Adjusted his tie. And came over in a gait that was unhurried. Totally natural. Without any airs.

“Mayhap she shall allow me to finish this now.” Saxton stopped. “Although, if you’d prefer, I can just leave the papers and the two of you can go through them. My verbalizing the provisions, or not, shall not change a thing.”

“No,” Throe said smoothly. “It is best that she have an opportunity to ask questions. Do come in again, and please pardon our delay.”

As he stepped to one side and indicated the way, his instincts pricked and refused to be quieted. “In fact, perhaps it is better if you take a moment with her privately. Mayhap my presence is the problem.”

Saxton inclined his head. “As you wish. I am here to serve—or not—at her behest.”

“We are ever in your debt,” Throe murmured. In a louder tone, he said into the room, “Naasha, darling, I shall go see about some victuals. Perhaps that will be of aid to this tedious process.”

He waited as she placed her hand across her bosom and sighed dramatically. “Yes, my love, I am feeling weakened from the news.”

“But of course.”

Shutting the doors behind the attorney, he sniffed the air again. Too fresh. And too cold. Someone had opened a door or a window.

Striding across to the front entrance of the manse, he opened it wide—and stepped out to regard the parking area.

Saxton had come in a car. He’d seen the male arrive from up in his bedroom.

Wheeling around, he strode back into the house and went directly to the study doors, sliding one side back. “Assail,” he snapped.

Alas, the room was empty.

SIXTY

Qhuinn held his breath as the anesthesia was administered to Layla and a dark brown, pungent-smelling antiseptic was splashed across her round belly. And he further did not breathe as Manny, Jane, Ehlena, and Vishous clustered around the operating table, two on each side, their gloved fingers picking up and trading instruments back and forth.

You could scent the blood in the air as the cut was made, and Qhuinn felt the floor go into a wave pattern under his feet, sure as if the tile had liquefied.

As Blay’s hold bit into his arm, it was hard to tell whether that was because the male was worried about Qhuinn fainting, or because he himself was likewise unsteady. Probably some of both.

How did it come to this? Qhuinn wondered silently.

But as soon as the thought hit him, he shook his head. What the fuck had he assumed was going to happen with two young in there?

“Is she all right?” he barked. “Are they alive?”

“Here comes one,” Blay said roughly.

“Baby A,” Manny pronounced as he handed a little purple bundle to Ehlena.

There wasn’t even a chance to look at the kid. The nurse moved fast, rushing the infant over to one of two triage beds that had been set up.

Too silent. Motherfucker—it was too damn quiet.

“Is it alive!” Qhuinn yelled. “Is it alive!”

Blay had to hold him back—but then again the lunge forward was ridiculous. Like he could do anything to help any of this? Oh, and as if he wanted the nurse to be thinking about anything other than saving that infant?

But Ehlena looked over. “Yes, he is. He is alive—we just need to keep him that way.”

Qhuinn took no comfort in any of that. How could he when the entity she was intubating and giving drugs to looked like some kind of tiny alien. A tiny, fragile, wrinkly alien that had nothing in common with the fat babies he’d seen born to humans on T.V. from time to time.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned. “So small.”

The infant wasn’t going to survive. He knew it down to his soul. They were going to lose him and—

“Baby B,” Jane announced as she handed something over to Vishous.

V steamed by with the young, and Qhuinn gasped.

The daughter—his daughter—was even smaller. And she wasn’t purple.

She was gray. Gray as stone.

All at once, the memory he had taken with him when he had serviced Layla during her needing came back to him. It was from when he had nearly died himself, and had gone up unto the Fade, and had faced off at a white door in the midst of a foggy white landscape.

He had seen an image on that door.

The image of a young female with blond hair and eyes that were shaped like his—eyes that had changed color before him from the precise shade of Layla’s to the mismatched blue and green of his own.

With an animal’s cry of pain, he bellowed into the OR, screaming with an agony he had never felt before—

He had guessed wrong. He had . . . been wrong. He had misinterpreted what he had seen.

The vision on the door had been not the prediction of a daughter to come.

But a daughter he had lost in birth.

A daughter . . . who had died.

SIXTY-ONE

As Mary sped through the underground tunnel to the training center, the slapping sounds of her rushing feet echoed out in front of her, an auditory shadow seemingly in as much of a hurry as she was to get where she was going. When she came to the door that opened into the office’s supply closet, she put in the code and burst through into the shallow space beyond, passing by the shelves of pens and pads, the back-up flash drives and stacks of printer paper.

Out in the office, she pulled up short. Tohr was sitting behind the desk, staring at a computer screen that had all kinds of rainbow-colored bubbles obscuring the DailyMail.co.uk home page.

He jumped as he noticed her and then scrubbed his face. “Hey.”

“How are they?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been in there for what feels like forever.”

“Where’s Autumn?”

“She’s out at Xhex’s hunting cabin. It’s my night off and she was getting it ready for us to . . . you know.” He checked his watch. “I’ve been debating on whether or not to call her. I was hoping for news first, so she wouldn’t worry. Well, good news, that is.”

“You should tell her what’s going on.”

“I know.” His eyes returned to the monitor. “I, ah . . . I’m not handling this very well.”