The hallway had a u-curve, with sections separated by walls, privacy provided by curtains that slid out in front to form a fourth barrier. People in Patrol uniforms stood guard here and there, keeping the peace. Two of them were helping to carry a stretcher with a cape in heavy armor on it.

It all felt so surreal.

I’m sorry. I really hope the Wardens have something.

My thoughts were jarred as I saw Marquis. He glanced at me, saying nothing, before pushing a curtain aside just enough to step into the enclosure.

Was she here?

If there was a small peace to be found in the small kindnesses and smaller distractions, that possibility erased it, destroyed it.

“Doctor Close?” the nurse asked. The doctor was in the center area, surrounded by nurses and papers that had been written on, not printed.

“Antares,” he said. “I’ve seen you on television.”

“Oh no,” I said, deadpan in part because I was trying very hard not to provoke my injuries.

“I don’t take sides,” he said. “That is a lot of blood right there.”

“There’s more,” I said. “Hard to see with the black top on.”

He shined a light in my eyes, then at my mouth. I opened it.

“Close,” he said. I did. He took my hands and looked at the fingertips. Well, the ones he could see with the bandages.

“Lip color is okay. Fingernails don’t suggest circulation problems. Any confusion?”

“Thoughts are a bit rambly.”

“Dizziness?”

“Yep.”

“Sweating?”

“I just fought the Simurgh. If I wasn’t drenched in cold sweat, that’d be the problem.”

“That’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Breathe deep?”

“I’d rather not. My ribs are…” Fractured? Broken? “Fucked. Pretty fucked. My collarbone’s really fucked. Broken. I’m not sure about the ribs.”

So much for that thinking I’d done earlier about talking to that nurse and being really concise, making everything easier. It wasn’t just my thoughts that were rambling.

“Could be a fracture,” he said.

I peeled the pad of bandage away, as much as I could. It helped I’d just done it a minute and a half ago.

Minute and a half. The world is ending. The Simurgh is winning.

“Oh,” he said, with enough surprise in his voice to bring me to the present. I almost jumped, and the only reason I didn’t might have been that I was way too fucking tired.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Broken,” he said.

“That’s what I said,” I answered, my voice a whisper.

I wasn’t sure he heard, because he was preoccupied saying something to the nurse. He looked back to me. “Abdominal pain? Chest pain?”

“My ribs are pretty fucked,” I reminded him, my tone tense. I felt bad enough sitting in a hospital cubicle while the world was fucking ending, without him wasting time.