My breath, which had evened out again, sped back up, and my eyes darted around the darkened room. But this time, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The phantom people from earlier had disappeared as my brain slowly sorted itself out. Leaving just the usual suspects: the hulk of a wardrobe looming like a leviathan in the shadows, a spear of moonlight glinting off the side of the bathtub, the comparatively brightly lit window with winter moonlight spilling in, the buttery puddle of light around the candle…

I gripped the side of the washstand to stay upright, and listened, but there was nothing to hear, either. Just a soft rain that had started to patter down outside, spotting the moonlight and strobing the faint wedge of light on the floor. A few creaks and groans from the old house, barely audible to my straining ears, as it had settled long ago. And the distant chiming of the grandfather clock on the floor below, striking eleven.

But nothing else.

There was no one here.

I pulled Rhea’s chair over and sat down, feeling wobbly. And seriously confused. Instead of making things clearer my memories seemed to be doing the opposite, showing me things that seemed real, but couldn’t be.

I found the place on my hip where the large wound had laid me open. It had been a burn, one deep enough to threaten the bone, the kind they called third degree. But all I felt now was smooth skin, perhaps a little slicker than the rest, with slight puckering at the edges. Fire’s kiss, I thought vaguely, and then shook my head.

What was wrong with me? And why wasn’t more wrong with me? If I’d been that badly hurt, could even Mircea have healed me? And if he had, why was he doing it through Pritkin and from a century away? He could have just shifted here. And if Pritkin had come instead, where was he?

Why was Rhea watching over me instead?

I clasped my arms around myself, wishing they were Pritkin’s much stronger ones, hard and warm and reassuring. Nothing made sense, yet I didn’t want to go back to that place of pain and terror to find out more. I suddenly didn’t want to remember anything, not now, maybe not ever.

So, of course, my jumbled brain decided that it was finally time to cough up an answer.

“Lady! Lady!” A stranger’s voice popped in, although whether from the door or from shifting, I couldn’t tell. I wanted to open my eyes, but my lids were heavy, so heavy, as if they were made out of lead. I couldn’t do it. “The healer is downstairs, but the mages won’t let her through.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Agnes is arguing with them now. But they want to see you—”

Gertie muttered something and got up. “Stay with her,” she snapped.