“Who said anything about drugging?” And okay, that was definitely Agnes. So, the older woman was probably Gertie. Gertie, I thought, latching onto the name. Help me—

But nothing came out of my mouth but another mewling cry. The pain was savage and unrelenting, like a pack of wolves tearing at me all at once, refusing to let me speak. I struggled to find a position that didn’t hurt, or at least that hurt less, but there were none. My body was fire, my existence agony, my—

A hand, reaching out of the darkness, gripped mine. It made me gasp, just that little touch, because with it… came relief. Not complete, not even close, but something. Enough that I was able to breathe again.

I must have been breathing before, I thought in confusion, or else how could I have screamed? But it didn’t feel like it. My lungs creaked, as if long atrophied, when I took what felt like my first deep breath in hours. Agony poured through my body, but so did sweet, cold, life-giving oxygen. I gulped and gulped, and couldn’t seem to get enough.

The healer, I thought vaguely.

He must have come.

Voices faded in and out and people came and went, but fewer now. Agnes was doing as instructed and clearing the room. Curtains were being drawn, leaving everything in twilight, letting a darker shade of gray fall over my closed eyelids.

“Keep Rhea out; whatever you do,” Gertie said softly.

“But if Cassie starts to fade…” Agnes’ voice.

“Especially if she starts to fade.”

Gertie sounded like that ‘if’ was actually a ‘when’, which was enough to panic me. But at the same time, someone else was murmuring reassurances into my ear, so softly that I couldn’t hear them. But I could feel them, resonating through my bones.

And it wasn’t the healer.

A wave of disorientation hit as the latest snippet of memory vanished, and with it went any pretense of numbness. My heart was pounding and my overloaded brain was threatening revolt. I recited the alphabet backwards, over and over, while refusing to think about anything else for a minute. It was a trick I’d learned while on the run from the vampire mobster who’d raised me, to avoid having a panic attack and ending up dead at the hands of his goons, but it only worked about half the time.

Tonight, it was easy, as if I was too tired even to panic properly. My brain continued to scream in alarm, but my body wasn’t listening. The adrenaline rush sloughed away fast, as if I was mostly out of that particular hormone, leaving me shaking and vaguely nauseous, and feeling like I could fall asleep right there, hard floor and all. It was a strange mish-mash of reactions that had me staring at the darkness, caught in indecision.