Though thankfully I didn’t pee my pants. But my clothes and hair are soaked and plastered against my skin.

“Up you get now,” Maida says.

She takes one hand, Zia takes the other and effortlessly, they pull me to my feet.

I stand there feeling wobbly, trying to adjust my balance. Everything feels wrong until I realize why that is. There’s no more numbness. There’s no more pain. My bad leg takes my weight without wanting to give way from under me.

The crow girls let go of my hands and I flex my fingers, delighting in the painless movement.

“Oh, god,” I say.

Zia shakes her head. “That wasn’t any old spirit that fixed you.”

“It was a gift of the Grace,” Maida says.

Geordie takes a step toward me, but I close the distance and throw myself at him, my arms wrapped around his neck. I swing there, banging my feet, first against the wheelchair, then against the end of the bed, but I don’t care.

Geordie hugs me until I put my feet on the ground. He holds me a moment longer, to make sure I’ve got my balance, but he doesn’t need to. I’ve totally got my balance.

“Oh, dear,” I say and lift a hand to wipe at the big wet spot I’ve put on Geordie’s shirt.

“Don’t even think about it,” he tells me.

His grin is as big as the one I can feel stretching my own lips.

I turn to the crow girls.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I begin.

Maida steps up and lays a finger against my mouth.

“Shush,” she says. “We’ve wanted to do this for ages, but we couldn’t.”

Zia nods. “There was a veryvery dark thing in you, but it’s gone now.”

“Gone, gone!” Maida cries.

And she begins an impromptu dance. She takes one of my hands, Zia the other, and we bang some more around the room, giggling and laughing until we finally collapse on the bed. I look up to see Geordie shaking his head, but still grinning. He pulls me up into a sitting position. I’m still snickering when I turn to look at the crow girls again, but all the merriment has left their faces once more.

They’re solemn and serious. Everything feels solemn and serious, invested with a gravitas that’s completely eluding me. The very air in the room seems to have an earnest weight to it.

“You should spend some time in the otherworld,” Zia says.

Maida nods. “You really should. Both of you.”

“The air of the otherworld is closer to the long ago than it is here.”

“It will keep enchantment strong in your blood.”

“So that you stay strong and your light will never pale.”

“This world of Raven’s . . . it has a funny hold on how things should be.” “Everything’s harder here.”

“Magic.”

“Kindness.”