Through a mist of black fog, my brain parsed the words and slowly found meaning in them. Some basic response in me wanted to comply, but my eyelids felt like they were stuck together. Thinking—let alone answering—was too hard, but more words came to encourage me.

“There you go, sweetie. Try it again. You almost had it.”

With much effort, I finally managed to open my eyes. It was excruciating. My lids felt like they were made of lead. At first, I could only perceive one thing: light. I winced, wanting to sink back into that oblivion I’d been pulled from. And with this slight stirring of consciousness, all the pain I’d escaped from before suddenly returned. My head throbbed. My back burned. The cliché about breaking every bone in the body seemed like a very real possibility all of a sudden, and I was pretty sure I’d broken a few that weren’t in my body. Sure, that didn’t make sense, but with as bad as I felt, little did.

“Oh God.” At least, that’s what I tried to say. It came out as more of an indistinct moan.

“Easy there. You don’t have to say anything.”

I opened my eyes again, this time making out a figure leaning over me. I knew his voice so well that I didn’t need to see his face, which was a blur anyway.

“Hugh,” I croaked.

“Hey, ask her what—”

“Shut up,” Hugh snapped. The jerky movement of his head made me think he’d glanced behind him, but I couldn’t be certain.

He moved his face closer to mine, bringing his features into sharper relief. He was paler than I’d ever seen him, his face filled with lines of worry and fear I’d never thought him capable of. He looked even more upset than when he’d come to tell us about Jerome’s summoning. Reaching out, Hugh held the lids of one of my eyes open and shone a small light into it. I squirmed at the brightness—or at least I tried—but he was fast and did it to the other eye before it caused too much discomfort. When he finished, he moved his finger around in the air and studied my eyes as I followed it.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The voice behind him piped up. “You already said her name.”

Hugh sighed and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “What’s his name?”

“Cody,” I said. It was getting easier to speak, but the pain was going up the more conscious I became. Cody’s voice was as familiar to me as Hugh’s, and I felt certain Peter was here too.

Hugh asked me a few other factual questions, like the current year and the location, and also if I was nauseous.