Venturesomely I swung my feet out from under the beaver-pelt blanket and set them on the plank floor, which radiated heat, for evidently the hypocaust had been repaired. I wore the nightgown I’d been given at White Bow House, and my chest had a poultice on it, wrapped into place by linen strips. “How long have I been sick?”

“Eight days.”

According to report, if a human is bitten by a ghoul, the onset of the disease is so swift and implacable that the victim will become morbid in less than seven days. So the headmaster had read aloud to us the day Bee had argued with Bran Cof in his study.

Eight days! Well! This was encouraging! I stood, and my feet stayed under me. Holding on to Rory’s arm, I shuffled to where I could see past the screen and into the room.

The scene of a family dinner just come to its end could not have been more charming even had Bee sketched it. Vai’s mother was seated in the chair of honor, looking frail but aglow with happiness as she held the hand of her pregnant daughter, Kayleigh. Bintou and Wasa were fomenting mischief with a lad I was pretty sure was one of Kofi’s young cousins, brought with him from Expedition. Old Bakary was seated next to Bee, and to my surprise Beatrice was paging through her sketchbook while the djeli made comments. Over at a lovely new desk Chartji, Caith, Godwik, and the Taino woman I had seen in my delirium bent over a schematic Kofi had unrolled. The behica was explaining about good plumbing, drinking water, and cholera.

Vai stood looking at it, too. He held a fat baby with chubby brown cheeks and a chortling laugh. I had just decided that I had to be dreaming when he turned his head and smiled at me, as if he’d known I was standing there. He gave a half-wink as if to say that I ought to notice how handsome he looked with a baby in his arms and didn’t I want him to have one of his very own?

With a smile, I mouthed, Soon but not yet.

Then everyone else saw me, and their exclamations of delight and concern bent me like a reed under the onslaught of a winter gale. I retreated to the bed and sank down. Vai and Bee hurried in to sit on either side of me.

“Love, how are you?”

“I’m hungry! I could eat a whole side of beef and have room for turnips besides!”

“We were so worried,” said Bee, wringing my hands until I grimaced and said, “Ouch!”

Vai brushed strands of hair off my brow. “Why on earth did you go to Tanit’s sanctuary on Hallows’ Night without telling anyone? We thought you had been taken by the Wild Hunt!”