She’s had four surgeries to try to repair the damage from the crash. To pin her pelvis back together. To ease the pressure on her brain. Depending on the results of her next MRI, we may have to go back for number five before the end of the summer.

I never said how much it meant to us that you flew out here after the accident. That you watched Lexi’s brother and brought us badly cooked meals and did everything you could to help.

Only you didn’t, did you? You didn’t do everything.

Maybe you had good reasons. Maybe your precious secret was more important than your niece. Well, the secret’s out now, and Lexi deserves better. She deserves the chance to be a kid . . .

I pushed the memories aside and skimmed Lex’s record. The background was fourteen pages long, detailing multiple surgeries, medications, and chronic pain. Pain I could have spared her.

New Millennium had spent months on tests, working under the direction of NIH doctors to ensure that all non-magical options had been exhausted. There were memorandums of agreement with Toby’s insurance company, piles of waivers and disclaimers, and even a court challenge to Toby and Angie’s fitness as parents. That bullshit had come closer than anything else to making me openly break the laws against magical assault and battery.

I clicked through to the most recent entry, dated today at 8:38 a.m.

A longer report would come later. For now, I wiped my eyes and focused on the photograph of Lex standing in front of a hospital bed. Each of her parents held one of her hands, holding her steady as she tested her balance.

She wore a hospital gown, and her feet were bare. Her new leg was several shades paler than the other. It was skinnier, too. She’d be in rehab and physical therapy for weeks to come. Months, probably.

I checked the doctor’s notes. Lex had spent the next hour getting X-rays, MRIs, and other scans of her new leg. They’d also completed a long list of tests on her brain. The physical damage had disappeared, but we would continue to monitor her for seizures and other side effects for at least a year.

A two-tone whistle filled the apartment. I’d programmed the door chime with the boatswain’s whistle sound from the original Star Trek. I cleared the computer screen, wiped my face, and headed for the door.

Russell Potts, the Department of Homeland Security’s representative on the New Millennium Board of Directors, shoved a trade paperback into my hands. “Right now, every man, woman, and child in North Korea is reading this book. Do you know why?”