get to a bed before the exhaustion hit, I’d be doing pretty good.

But first, I had to see Augustine.

He was in a private room in the infirmary’s calm cloister, but this one was different than the one

Ash had been strapped down in, or even the one they’d been trying to save me in. His was on an

outer wall, a bed and a window, and it looked like a high-end hospital suite. It was even done in

peach and cream, and for a second I was so lightheaded I was afraid I would fall down right there

and then.

Because it still smelled like a hospital. Like disinfectant, medicine, pain. And grief. The touch

throbbed inside my aching head like a sore tooth.

Augie’s apartment in Brooklyn was pretty neat and clean, considering a single guy lived there. I

made it shipshape in the month I spent there.

He and Dad worked on clearing out a demonic rat infestation. And then Dad was up near the Canadian border doing something, and I hung with August. Who never, I realized now, let me very far

out of his sight even in the apartment. A month in one of the biggest, coolest cities in the world, and

all I’d known was that one street in Brooklyn.

Now that I knew Augie was djamphir, I wondered if he could teach me to light someone’s cigarette

that way. I was hoping to get the chance to ask him.

He and Dad had argued all the time about the Real World, whether the authorities knew and were

deliberately keeping the knowledge down, or whether people didn’t want to know and so ignored it.

Now the faint smile on August’s face during all those arguments made sense.

Other things I remembered made sense, too. Like August’s voice while I lay in bed and tried to

sleep, listening to him and Dad. That girl deserves to be with her own kind. And how beat-up he’d

been coming back a few times, and how he’d healed so fast. How many times while I was there had

he been killing suckers?

Had any of the suckers he’d killed been after me? Had they even suspected I existed? I could have

been in danger and not even known it.

Jesus.

August lay on the bed, swathed in white bandages. His dark eyes were sleepy, blond hair mussed

like he’d just spent a hard night tossing around. The bruises were fading, but he had the faraway

look of someone on some really good tranquilizers. His right hand lay, curiously pale and unbandaged, against the peach coverlet.

“He’s sedated,” Christophe said quietly. “Enough to give his psyche and body some room to repair

themselves. Shock can kill, more than the actual injuries.”

I made it to the side of the bed, Christophe hovering right behind me. “Augie?” I sounded about

five years old.