I was really flying high now. Everything seemed to glow from inside—the fabrics, the faces, the very walls. The crowd inside and outside the room had begun to murmur and question, but that noise was just a ringing in my ears—like the lingering sound after a bell is struck. A shimmer in the air. Nothing seemed real but the little circle of people I loved. Jamie and Jared and Ian and Jeb. Even Doc belonged in this perfect moment.

“Fresh injuries?” Ian asked in a flat voice.

I stared at him, surprised at the anger in his eyes.

“It was necessary. I had to hide my scar. And learn how to heal Jamie.”

Jared picked up my left wrist and stroked his finger over the faint pink line a few inches above it. “It was horrible,” he said, all the humor suddenly gone from his sober voice. “She about hacked her hand off. I thought she’d never use it again.”

Jamie’s eyes widened in horror. “You cut yourself?”

I squeezed his hand again. “Don’t be anxious—it wasn’t that bad. I knew it would be healed quickly.”

“You should have seen her,” Jared repeated in a low voice, still stroking my arm.

Ian’s fingers brushed across my cheek. It felt nice, and I leaned into his hand when he left it there. I wondered if it was the No Pain or just the joy of saving Jamie that made everything warm and glowing.

“No more raids for you,” Ian murmured.

“Of course she’ll go out again,” Jared said, his voice louder with surprise. “Ian, she was absolutely phenomenal. You’d have to see to really understand. I’m only just beginning to guess at all the possibilities—”

“Possibilities?” Ian’s hand slid down my neck to my shoulder. He pulled me closer to his side, away from Jared. “At what cost to her? You let her almost hack her own hand off?” His fingers flexed around the top of my arm with his inflections.

The anger didn’t belong with the glow. “No, Ian, it wasn’t like that,” I said. “It was my idea. I had to.”

“Of course it was your idea,” Ian growled. “You’d do anything.… You have no limits when it comes to these two. But Jared shouldn’t have let you —”

“What other way was there, Ian?” Jared argued. “Did you have a better plan? Do you think she’d be happier if she was unhurt but Jamie was gone?”

I flinched at the hideous thought.

Ian’s voice was less hostile when he answered. “No. But I don’t understand how you could sit there and watch her do that to herself.” Ian shook his head in disgust, and Jared’s shoulders hunched in response. “What kind of a man —”

“A practical one,” Jeb interrupted.

We all looked up. Jeb stood over us, a bulky cardboard box in his arms.