“No. You can’t move. Bill’s in his daytime sleep for now. Eric is coming tonight, actually in a couple of hours, and he’ll bring at least one other vampire with him. That’ll help. The Were is too badly wounded for you to disturb.”

I didn’t absorb that. My mind was racing ahead. It was a mighty slow race, but I was thinking a little more clearly. “Has someone told Sam, do you know?” How long had I been out? How much work had I missed?

Dr. Ludwig shrugged. “I don’t know. I imagine so. He seems to hear everything.”

“Good.” I tried to shift positions, gasped. “I’m going to have to get up to use the bathroom,” I warned her.

“Claudine,” Dr. Ludwig said, and my cousin put away her knitting and rose from the rocking chair. For the first time, I registered that my beautiful fairy godmother looked like someone had tried to push her through a wood chipper. Her arms were bare and covered with scratches, scrapes, and cuts. Her face was a mess. She smiled at me, but it was painful.

When she lifted me in her arms, I could feel her effort. Normally Claudine could heft a large calf without any trouble if she chose to.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can walk. I’m sure.”

“Don’t think of it,” Claudine said. “See, we’re already there.”

When our mission was accomplished, she scooped me up and took me back to bed.

“What happened to you?” I asked her. Dr. Ludwig had departed without another word.

“I got ambushed,” she said in her sweet voice. “Some stupid brownies and one fairy. Lee, his name was.”

“I guess they were allied with this Breandan?”

She nodded, fished out her bundle of knitting. The item she was working on appeared to be a tiny sweater. I wondered if it was for an elf. “They were,” she said. “They are bits of bone and flesh now.” She sounded quite pleased.

Claudine would never become an angel at this rate. I wasn’t quite sure how the progression worked, but reducing other beings to their component parts was probably not the route of choice. “Good,” I said. The more of Breandan’s followers who met their match, the better. “Have you seen Bill?”

“No,” Claudine said, clearly not interested.

“Where is Claude?” I asked. “Is he safe?”

“He’s with Grandfather,” she said, and for the first time, she looked worried. “They’re trying to find Breandan. Grandfather figures that if he takes out the source, Breandan’s followers will have no choice but to stop the war and pledge an oath to him.”

“Oh,” I said. “And you didn’t go, because . . . ?”