I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a dream where I wasn’t hurt, and no one was kicking me around. The walls were white and smooth and clean, lit only by frosty moonlight, and someone with a gentle voice was speaking quietly to me. But my right hand had broken into fierce tingling, all pins and needles, and sleep began to retreat. I started to wake slowly. Voices murmured in the room.

“…can she possibly be sure?” Murphy demanded in a heated whisper.

“It isn’t my area of knowledge,” Michael rumbled back. “Ma’am?”

Luccio’s tone was cautious. “It is a delicate area of the art,” she said. “But the girl does have a gift.”

“Then we need to say something.”

“You can’t,” Molly said, her tone quiet and sad. “It wouldn’t help. It might make things worse.”

“And you know that?” Murphy demanded. “You know that for a fact?”

I was so tired, I’d probably missed a sentence or three in there. I blinked my eyes open and said muzzily, “The kid knows what she’s talking about.” I fumbled about and found Mouse lying on the floor beside the couch, immediately under my arm. I decided sitting up could wait for a minute. “What are we talking about?”

Molly gave Murphy a look that said, There, see?

Murphy shook her head and said, “I’m going to see if Kincaid is awake yet.” She left, her expression set in stony displeasure.

Mouse set about industriously licking my right hand, a canine grooming ritual he sometimes pursued. It broke up the pins and needles a bit, so I didn’t argue. I still had no idea what was up with my hand. I’d never heard of anything like this happening to anyone—but it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, and all things considered it wasn’t anywhere near the top of my priority list at the moment.

Nobody answered my question, though.

The silence got awkward. I coughed uncomfortably. “Uh. Anyone know what time it is?”

“Almost midnight,” Luccio said quietly.

I waited for a minute, but apparently no one was going to do me a favor and knock me unconscious again, so I did my best to ignore the aches and pains and sat up. “What’s the word from Nicodemus?”

“He hasn’t returned our call,” Luccio said.

“Not really a surprise,” I muttered, raking my fingers through my hair. I’d gone to sleep wearing one of Michael’s old pairs of sweats and one of his T-shirts, so my ankles stuck way out, and both shirt and sweats fit me as well as a tent. “Whatever they’re doing to keep Ivy restrained, it’s got to be pretty elaborate. I’d hold my calls until I was sure it was solid, too.”

“As would I,” Luccio agreed.

“Is she really that dangerous?” Michael asked.

“Yes,” Luccio said calmly. “The Council regards her as a significant power in her own right, on par with the youngest Queens of the Sidhe Courts.”

“If anything, I think that profile in the Wardens’ files underestimates her,” I said quietly. “She had barely anything to work with, and she was making Tessa and her crew look like pygmies trying to capture an elephant. If she hadn’t been cut off so entirely, I think she’d have eaten them alive.”