I reluctantly get up to follow her. She’s three inches taller than me, and twice as broad, and she wears her hair in a large, dark knot at the back of her head. She’s headed for an exam room. The light over the door means a patient is inside.

“I don’t have any medical training,” I say.

“I’m well aware.” She opens the door.

Simon Snow is standing there. Shirtless. Shaking. His devil wings clenched against his back. He’s holding a scalpel.

“Simon?”

“Agatha?” There are more knives on the floor. And broken glass. Cotton swabs. The exam room looks like it’s been ransacked. Simon’s eyes are wild. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s no trouble,” Niamh says. “We’ll just try again. Wash your hands, Miss Wellbelove.”

“I—”

She gives me a pointed look, so I close my mouth and go to wash my hands in the sink.

Simon hands Niamh the scalpel and crouches to pick something else up from the floor—a large saw.

“I’ve got this,” she says, taking it from him. “Sit down, Mr. Snow.” She mumbles a spell, and the room rights itself, all the sharp tools flying up onto a tray.

Simon sits at the end of the exam table, looking numb and exhausted. It’s the look that used to mean he’d just blown all his magic at once—the look he’d get right after he came to, a burned-out husk. I can practically smell the ozone. (Merlin, Simon used to stink of magic. It turned my stomach.)

Niamh joins me at the sink, pulling another face at me and nodding her head towards Simon. I still have no idea what my role is here, but when she nods his way again, I walk over to him.

Simon glances up at me, then folds his arms over his chest—as if I haven’t seen him like this before. I mean, I suppose I haven’t. Not with the wings. And Simon’s thicker now than he used to be. I can’t see his ribs.

But I know all this golden skin … I’ve counted these moles.

It’s a strange feeling to look at someone’s chest and know it’s nothing to do with you anymore, but still to remember kissing every inch.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say. “I can go.”

“No,” he says. “Please.”

Just as Niamh says, “No. I need your help.”

“Sorry,” Simon says again, to Niamh. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs miserably in his neck.

“Nonsense,” she says. “I startled you. We’re going to start fresh…”

He nods. I stand there uselessly—I don’t know what we’re starting.

“Now I’m going to extend just the left side,” Niamh says, gingerly touching Simon’s wing.