Jo-Jo’s eyes glowed milky white in the semidarkness, and the same light coated the palm of her hand. She leaned over Phillip and went to work. Up and down, back and forth. Jo-Jo moved her hand over Phillip’s chest again and again. A few seconds later, I heard something plink onto the stone step; Jo-Jo had grabbed hold of the oxygen in the air and had used it to fish the bullet out of his body. Now she’d be circulating even more oxygen through the wound and using all of those molecules to pull the rough edges of his skin back together. I knew, because she’d done the exact same thing to me more times than I could remember.

Five more minutes passed before Jo-Jo dropped her hand, and the pale glow finally faded from her eyes.

“All better now,” Jo-Jo said, reaching over to pat Eva’s hand. “He should wake up in a few minutes.”

Then she turned and looked in my direction as though she could see right through the trees I was still crouched behind. “You can come on out now, darling,” she said. “I believe it’s your turn now, anyway.”

“Jo-Jo?” Eva asked. “Who are you talking to?”

“You’ll see.”

I straightened up and trudged out from behind the bonsai trees. It took me a minute to walk over to the elemental and another one still to ease up the steps, but I managed it.

“I hate that I can never sneak up on you,” I teased. “You always took all the fun out of playing hide-and-seek when I was a kid.”

Jo-Jo smiled, the lines on her face grooving even deeper into her skin and adding to the welcoming warmth in her clear, colorless eyes. “Well, it’s nice to know that my Air magic is good for something besides patching up folks. Besides, I like keeping an eye on you. Someone has to.”

A gasp sounded, and I looked at Eva, who was staring at me with wide eyes.

“Gin?” she asked.

I grinned at her. “Back from the dead. Again.”

“Gin!”

She got to her feet, threw her arms around me, and hugged me tight. I winced as more pain exploded in my ribs, but I managed to choke down my discomfort enough to return her hug.

Eva drew back and looked me over. “But . . . but how?”

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” I said. “Right now, I’d like to let Jo-Jo patch me up, if it’s okay with you. Clementine got a few good licks in on me before I managed to take her out.”

Eva helped me sit down on the step next to the dwarf. Jo-Jo eyed me, taking in my ruined dress, my cuts and bruises, and the dried blood that flaked off my skin with every move I made.

“I would ask if you had a rough night,” she murmured. “But I think that’s pretty self-evident.”