“Oh, my God.” Nadia looked over at her father. “Can we—”

“Let’s go,” he said, like it was the only thing to do. Dad could be great like that sometimes.

Nadia had never felt worse in her life than she did when she saw Verlaine’s dads in the waiting room at the hospital. Uncle Gary tried to be polite and informative, even though his voice kept shaking; Uncle Dave could only sit there with his head in his hands.

“A coma?” Nadia whispered. “How long does that—would she—?”

“They don’t know.” Uncle Gary kept weaving his fingers together, clasping his hands, unclasping them, like he was trying to work all his nervousness out that way. “It’s not unusual, really. I mean, we hear about comas that go on for—for months or years—”

Uncle Dave made a small sound in the back of his throat, and Cole put a tentative hand on his shoulder. That was when Nadia lost it. Her eyes began to tear up, and she had to lean against her father.

“—but that’s not what usually happens!” Uncle Gary added hastily. “Lots of people who’ve been through some severe shock go into a coma for only a few hours. Then they come to again and they’re fine. They’re just fine. All ‘coma’ means is that the person won’t wake up. That’s all they can tell us about Verlaine right now. She—she can’t wake up.”

Nadia hugged her father tightly around the waist while she struggled against entirely breaking down. “How did it—” She had to gulp in breaths that threatened to turn into sobs. “What happened?”

Uncle Gary shrugged. “They said her laptop electrocuted her, but a laptop shouldn’t even have enough voltage to do that—and the computer was acting fine when the medics got there. I mean, we’ve shut it down, and Dell is going to be hearing from our lawyers, believe you me, but how could that happen in the first place?”

It hadn’t been the computer, or electrocution. It had been magic. Elizabeth.

Why? Why go after Verlaine, and why now? None of this made any sense.

“Can I see her?” she whispered.

Uncle Dave nodded silently.

“Are we going, too?” Cole asked.

Her father said, “Nope. We’re going to get Verlaine’s dads something to eat.”

Nadia went on tiptoe to kiss her father on the cheek—something she hadn’t done in what felt like a long time—before she made her way down the hospital corridors. They were all incredibly wide, so stretchers could get through; it made Nadia feel even smaller and more powerless than before.

Then she stepped into Verlaine’s room, and that was definitely the worst.

Verlaine was so pale, so still; as she lay there she looked more dead than alive. Machines were hooked up to her hand and her heart even though the little green and blue lines of data they sent up to the screens around her told the doctors nothing. A plastic mask covered Verlaine’s nose and mouth, giving her oxygen, making sure she would keep breathing. Otherwise, at any moment, she might stop.