“We do a full work-up before we do any bindings. Heart, lungs, blood work—the magic can be…kind of intense, you know?” She hiccupped again. “Everything came back okay and the owner was pushing and—everything seemed fine. He was young. Healthy.”

“No red flags at all?”

She shook her head. “Even my mentor signed off. He seemed fine.” She started crying just as the timer went off again. She nudged me away.

I swapped the cookies out for the next batch, the kitchen now smelling of chocolate and sugar. “Lou, I’m not a mage but…if your mentor didn’t catch it, if no one caught it, then how is it your fault?”

“He was in my care!” She slumped into her chair, wrapping her hands around her tea. “I should have known.”

The cookies were too hot, but I grabbed a spatula anyway, and quickly moved two to a plate and put it in front of Lou. “Unless you can tell the future, how would you have known?”

She sniffed into her tea. “The file will get sent to an overseer. What if…what if I did something stupid? What if they find a mistake?”

I put a third cookie on her plate. “Do you trust your mentor?”

She blinked. “Of course. She’s the best.”

“Then what’s the worst that could happen?”

She picked up one of the cookies, breaking it in half, the melted chocolate oozing out. “Oh, that’s easy. They’ll realize I’m terrible at my job, I’ll never get my license, and they’ll shut our clinic down.”

“So no pressure.”

She stared morosely at her cookie. “I just feel so bad. I’m worried about my license—I mean, this has always been what I’ve wanted to do. What will happen if I can’t do it? And then I feel worse, because I remember that poor little Mercury is—” Her face crumpled again.

I gripped the counter for a second, watching her cry. It hurt to watch. I turned, opening the cabinet where I’d found a few bottles of liquor earlier. No tequila, but we had whiskey. I twisted open the top, pouring a healthy slug into her tea.

She laughed a little, crying at the same time. “That’s going to taste terrible.”

I shrugged. “Better drink it fast, then.” I walked out of the kitchen, heading for the bathroom.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m running you a bath,” I said, tossing the words over my shoulder as I walked. “Then you’re going straight to bed.”

I heard a broken sigh behind me, and I paused halfway through the bathroom door. Which is I why I heard her whisper, “Thanks, Declan.”

“You’re welcome,” I whispered back, sure she wouldn’t hear it, but knowing I needed to say it all the same.

Chapter Seven

Lou

It took the overseer two days to clear me. The relief—that it hadn’t totally been my fault—was heady, even if I was still mired in grief. It was really hard, losing a patient. I’d never lost someone I was binding before. The risk was usually minimal, and we had a lot of safeguards in place to make sure it didn’t happen.