“I’ve had two great loves in my lifetime, Isaac. Juan Ponce de Leon is one. The Porters—magic—is the other. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than I did when it comes to balancing those relationships.”

WE HAD PLANNED the New Millennium complex with an eye toward long-term growth. Thanks to legal hurdles and red tape that multiplied like tribbles at a buffet, the majority of our facilities remained vacant. Of the ten floors in the Metrodora Medical Tower, seven were sealed off and gathering dust while we waited for the day we could bring in more patients and healers.

Lex and her parents were in room 318 in the pediatric wing. Silhouettes of children, all painted in primary colors on the walls, played beneath large rainbows and cheerful white clouds. Shooting stars marked different trails along the floor: blue stars led to the main desk, green to the elevator and stairs, purple to the snack machine and play area, and so on.

I offered nods and greetings to several nurses, each of whom glanced at my badge before letting me pass. I found myself dragging my feet as I approached room 318. I’d faced any number of monsters and murderers in recent years, but in each of those battles, I’d known how to fight.

With Toby, I didn’t know how to end the fight. Truth be told, there would always be a part of me that believed my big brother was invincible, and that if I said the wrong thing, he’d put me in a headlock, bloody my nose, and shut me in the closet. Or shave off one of my eyebrows while I was sleeping, like he did after I accidentally scratched his car.

The door to Lex’s room was shut. The whiteboard outside noted that she’d eaten lunch and was scheduled for physical therapy at three thirty. I glanced at Smudge as if he could tell me what to expect, but Smudge was better at sensing threats to life and limb than he was the anger and bitterness of family.

I heard several voices inside: doctors and libriomancers taking turn asking Lex questions. She answered each one calmly and methodically, with her parents occasionally jumping in to offer additional details about her medical history.

I straightened my shoulders and knocked.

“Be right there,” Toby called. I heard slippers shuffling over the tile floor, and then the door swung inward.

Toby Vainio was taller, broader, and stronger than me. On the other hand, I still had all my hair.

His thinning blond fuzz was shaved to half an inch in length, a habit he’d kept up for close to a decade, ever since joining the National Guard. It made it easy to see the jagged scar above his left ear from falling through a rotten dock board when we were kids. He wore an old Detroit Lions T-shirt and loose sweatpants.