“Okay, settle down,” Sierra said. “You’re still asleep, because you need to heal. If you get too excited, you might wake up. But as far as I’ve seen in Jia’s head, you’re going to be fine. And they found Rachel in Colonel Charles’s house, of all places, so she’s already back.”

Fort frowned. “I need to heal? How badly was I injured?”

Sierra winced. “It wasn’t pretty. You’re lucky Jia was around. She took care of your biggest problems right away, but she had to restore everyone that the Old One morphed, and she’s been working with Dr. Ambrose on your father.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You always get up to such interesting things when I leave you alone, don’t you?”

“My father isn’t awake yet?” Fort tried to push himself out of bed, but somehow found himself right back in it. “Is he okay? What’s going on?!”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” Sierra said, but she looked away, which made Fort nervous. “Hey, don’t get all anxious on me, you know I can feel what you’re feeling. He just hasn’t come to yet. And Dr. Ambrose doesn’t know why. Though she did see something odd—”

“Odd? What’s odd? Sierra…?”

Sierra sighed. “She wasn’t going to tell you, because she’s not sure what it is. Part of her thinks it’s just that your dad has some odd EEG readings. Don’t ask me what that means, I saw the answer in her head and still can’t remember it, but it’s something they read your electric brain waves with. And before you start panicking again, she just saw something unusual, and she’s figuring it out, okay?”

Fort nodded, then noticed something in her mind. “That’s not all she saw, is it? You’re hiding something.”

“It’s not important. I’d tell you if it was.” He glared at her, and she threw up her hands. “Fine. The weird thing in his brain… it sort of, kind of, only remotely looks a bit like something they saw in my mind, okay? And I’m fine, aren’t I?”

Fort frowned. Something they’d seen in Sierra’s mind? “But you were in a coma. Maybe that’s the similarity?”

“See, that’s smart thinking!” Sierra said, then cringed. “Except she doesn’t think that’s it. But again, let’s remind ourselves that not only am I fine, but I’m actually doing great. And in an effort to change the subject, can we talk about how Damian is actually a dragon, of all things? No wonder he was all mopey. I would be too if I were the last of my species.”

Fort’s eyes widened. “What happened with him?” he asked. “Last I saw, he was about to attack you!”