Glimmerglass (31 page)

He was watching the rescue workers lower the harness again, but he seemed to sense my gaze on him, since he turned toward me.

“Aunt Grace,” I said. “What happened to her?”

Alistair’s already thin lips practically disappeared as he pressed them together hard and shook his head. “She got past me.” He forced his expression into one of wry amusement, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I was somewhat distracted when she tossed you into the moat, I’m afraid.”

My eyes fixed on the door to Faerie, and Alistair’s slight nod told me that’s where Grace had gone. Why did I expect she wouldn’t stay there forever?

I lost consciousness before my dad got me to his car. When I woke up, it was to find myself in a hospital bed. The aches and pains I remembered from before were all gone, but my head throbbed fiercely, and I was sweating like it was a hundred degrees in the room. I moaned and turned to my side.

Finn was sitting on a visitor’s chair beside my bed—between me and the door, naturally. I supposed he was back on bodyguard duty, but it felt good not to be alone when I woke up. He was reading a magazine, but he closed it and put it away when he saw I was awake.

My stomach wasn’t much happier than my head, and for a moment, I was afraid I was going to puke over the side of the bed. But the urge passed.

“Why am I in the hospital?” I asked Finn as I peeled sweaty strands of hair away from my face. “What’s wrong with me?”

“It seems you had an encounter with a Water Witch,” he said.

“No kidding?” Whatever was wrong with me, it wasn’t amnesia. I wished I could burn the image of that evil face from my brain.

Finn gave me a reproachful look, then continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Prolonged contact with Water Witches apparently makes humans rather ill.” He frowned. “Actually, prolonged contact with Water Witches usually leaves just about anyone dead. You were very lucky.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Yeah, luck central, that’s me.” The laughter morphed into a coughing fit. I was braced for the coughing to hurt my chest, but only the headache pain troubled me. “How long have I been here?” I had absolutely no sense of time at this point. It could have been hours or days.

“About four hours,” he said, and I was relieved that I hadn’t lost more time than that. “The healers took care of your physical injuries.”

Oh. That explained why the chest and throat and joint pains weren’t bugging me.

“But they can’t fix the sickness?” I guessed.

Finn shook his head. “The Fae don’t get sick, so our magic isn’t suited to curing illness, I’m afraid.”

In a way, I supposed that was a good thing. Otherwise every sick person in the world would be besieging Avalon. In fact, I bet even if the Fae healers
could
cure illnesses, they wouldn’t admit it. I could only imagine the chaos it would cause if a handful of people in one small city could, for instance, cure cancer.

I was already starting to feel exhausted just from the effort of simple concentration, but I managed one more question before I drifted back into sleep.

“How long am I in for?” I asked, not only because I hated being in the hospital—like any sensible person would—but because even with Finn guarding me, I wasn’t sure how safe I would be here.

“Probably a couple of days. The human doctors want to keep an eye on you, make sure your fever doesn’t get too high.”

I acknowledged my sentence with a heartfelt sigh, then rolled over and willed myself back to sleep.

The next time I woke up, it was because someone was gently shaking my shoulder.

“Come on, Dana,” I heard Finn say. “Wake up for a moment.”

The headache still pounded behind my eyes, and I was sweaty and cold at the same time. I didn’t much want to be awake for the experience, but I managed to pry my eyes open.

Finn was sitting on the edge of my bed, but my attention was immediately drawn to the mountain that stood just inside the doorway. The mountain named Lachlan.

I should have been alarmed to see him. He was Aunt Grace’s … boyfriend? Nah. I couldn’t see applying that term to Lachlan. But “lover” sounded so crass. I hated the term “significant other,” but I decided it was a fair compromise.

Anyway, I should have been spooked, but I wasn’t. Either the hospital had me on some really good drugs, or I figured Finn wouldn’t have let him in if he was a threat, or I just couldn’t see Lachlan in the role of villain. He
had
been pretty nice to me, even though he’d been holding me prisoner.

Finn smiled at me, but it looked like he wasn’t really used to smiling. It looked almost like it hurt him.

“Lachlan is here to relieve me for a while,” Finn said. “I wanted to wake you and assure you that you’re safe with him. He’s no Knight, but there are few who’d be foolish enough to take on a troll. And your father is confident Lachlan will not take you to Grace.”

I saw Lachlan wince. “Thanks,” I mumbled. I just wanted to go back to sleep. Being sick sucks.

Finn gave me one of his businesslike nods, then headed out without another word. Lachlan came to the bedside to tower over me. He looked … very sad. There was a shadow in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, and his shoulders were tight with tension and misery.

Tired as I was, I managed to smile up at him. “It’s all right, Lachlan,” I said. “I know you had nothing to do with what Aunt Grace did.” And I felt that truth to my bones. No matter what his relationship with Aunt Grace was, he wouldn’t sit by and let her kill someone. Or throw someone into the moat.

The tension in his shoulders relaxed, and he bowed his head. “Thank you.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” He met my eyes with a pleading, earnest look. “She’s really not like that. She’s just…”

I could forgive Lachlan for being in love with Grace, but I really wasn’t open to hearing whatever excuses he had for her bad behavior. I guess he saw that, because he didn’t say anything more, just took a seat in what I was already coming to think of as Finn’s chair.

That was my cue to return to la-la land, and I was more than happy to obey.

I drifted in and out of sleep for the better part of the day, waking up only when the nurses came to take my temperature, give me drugs, or urge me to eat and drink. I was not in the mood for eating and drinking, and hospital food turned out to be hospital food, even in Avalon. But they threatened to hook me up to an IV if I didn’t keep myself fed and hydrated, so I did the best I could.

At one point, I woke up to find a huge bouquet of yellow roses on my bedside table. Turned out Ethan had stopped by to visit while I was sleeping and had chosen not to wake me. Just looking at them—and their cheerful, sunny color—made me smile. Interesting that he’d chosen to send me roses, even if they weren’t red or white. I suspected gifts of roses took on a whole different meaning and significance when you were Fae.

By late afternoon, I was finding it hard to stay asleep, even though I felt terrible when I was awake. Worse, I knew the ordeal of dinner wasn’t far in the future, because hospitals always seem to feed people early. At least, that had been the case in the American hospitals my mom had landed in a couple of times after drunken “mishaps.”

Lachlan was still on guard duty, but neither one of us was feeling particularly chatty, so we were sitting in not-quite-companionable silence when I had my second visitor of the day.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to Kimber since the attack at the boutique. I supposed I should have called to check on her—after all, she’d been hurt, too—but my mom’s arrival in Avalon had driven all other thoughts from my head. Kimber hesitated in the doorway, chewing her lip in a very un-Fae-like show of nerves. The expression on her face was vulnerable, but I wasn’t sure what was wrong.

“Come on in.” I beckoned her as I raised the top half of my bed so I could sit up.

Kimber smiled tentatively and stepped through the doorway.

“I’ll wait outside to give you some privacy,” Lachlan said, and I flashed him a smile of gratitude.

When the door closed behind Lachlan, Kimber came to sit on the edge of my bed. She glanced at the bouquet of roses and raised her eyebrows.

“I see my brother has been here,” she said.

I discovered I could blush even with fever-flushed cheeks. “Yeah. I was asleep at the time.”

Her eyes glittering with mischief, she reached into the tote bag that hung from her shoulder. “I brought you something better.” She pulled out a thermos and gave it a vigorous shake.

It wasn’t hard to guess what was in that thermos, and as soon as Kimber twisted the top open, my nose confirmed the guess. As badly as I’d dreaded having to choke down dinner, the scent of the hot posset set my mouth instantly to watering. She poured me a careful capful and handed it to me.

It smelled so inviting—especially since the whiskey scent wasn’t overpowering—that I wanted to chug it down instantly, but I hesitated. “Is this allowed?” I asked. “I don’t know what meds I’m on, and’”

Kimber gave a haughty sniff. “Hot posset is the best medicine of all.”

“Yeah, but some meds don’t react well to alcohol.” And I imagined she and I both would get in trouble if the nurses came in and smelled booze on my breath.

Kimber chuckled. “I made it according to the actual recipe instead of spiking it like I usually do. There’s one tablespoon of whiskey in the whole batch. Now drink up before it starts to get that nasty hot-milk film on top.”

I took a sip and let out an appreciative “mmm.” It was as rich and creamy as I remembered, and Kimber had obviously used extra honey this time because it was deliciously sweet as well. I’m sure it was just the power of suggestion, but I swear my headache dimmed as I drank the posset down.

I drank the whole capful in no time flat, and Kimber instantly refilled it. She still had that vulnerable, shy look on her face.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, then took another soothing sip.

She huffed out a deep breath, then smiled at me. “I believe Ethan was right and I was being paranoid.” The smile faded, and she stared at her hands. “I was afraid that after everything that’s happened, you’d think I led you into an ambush at that boutique.”

I was genuinely shocked by the suggestion. Obviously, I’m not the most trusting of people, but I’d never once suspected Kimber had any involvement in the attack, and I told her so.

I hadn’t realized just how tense she was until her whole body relaxed.

“Why would you expect me to think you had anything to do with it?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I guess I’m still trying to deal with my guilty conscience about … before.”

“That’s water under the bridge,” I told her, and realized all the anger I’d felt when I’d discovered her and Ethan’s deception had faded away. I grinned. “I let Ethan off the hook because he saved my life. And you brought me hot posset, so you can’t be all bad.”

Kimber answered my grin with one of her own. “I told you hot posset is the cure for everything.”

Maybe it was the placebo effect, but I felt much better after two cups of hot posset. So much so that I was even able to face my delicious evening meal of rubber chicken, instant mashed potatoes, and mushy peas.

By the time I decided to call it a night and go back to sleep, Finn had replaced Lachlan again, and I was beginning to wonder why neither my father nor my mother had visited me. I supposed it was possible my mom was too drunk. She had, after all, been through quite a traumatic experience. But that didn’t explain my dad’s absence, and when I questioned Finn about it, he just told me my dad was a busy man. He didn’t bother to make that sound like the truth. But no amount of questioning would make him change his story.

My parents didn’t visit the next day, either, though both Ethan and Kimber stopped by. (And yes, Kimber brought more hot posset.) I’d half-hoped Keane would come—though probably his attitude wasn’t good for my health—but he didn’t. Silly of me to expect him, of course. And even sillier to be hurt that he hadn’t come. He was just my self-defense instructor, after all, not my friend.

I tried questioning Lachlan about why Mom and Dad weren’t visiting, but he was about as informative as Finn. I had a really bad feeling about all this, although when I asked, everyone assured me that my mom was fine.

My dad finally made his appearance on the morning of my third day in the hospital. I was still running a low-grade fever, but I was feeling much better, and the nurse who’d stopped by first thing in the morning told me I’d be free to go home after the doctor examined me one more time.

Finn was on guard duty when Dad arrived, but he hastily vacated the room and closed the door behind him. I didn’t like the look on my dad’s face, so guarded and almost … wary. I raised my bed so I could sit up comfortably, since I suspected we were about to have a conversation I shouldn’t take lying down.

I’d been so worried about my mom—not to mention traumatized by my little swim in the moat—that I hadn’t taken the time to consider my dad’s feelings. But as I looked at him and hedidn’t speak, I finally recognized the emotion I saw, the one he was trying so hard to guard: hurt.

My gaze skittered away from him, and I hung my head. I hadn’t known him very long, and he hadn’t even known I’d existed until less than a month ago, but he’d deserved better from me than to have me sneak away in the middle of the night without even leaving him a note. Even if my escape had been successful, Dad would probably have thought I’d somehow gotten kidnapped or murdered right under his nose.

“I’m sorry I tried to leave like that,” I said, looking at my hands, which were folded in my lap, rather than at him.

Dad didn’t answer. I finally couldn’t stand the silence, so I turned to look at him again. He shook his head, and it took everything I had not to turn away in shame.

“You could have died,” he said softly. “You almost
did
. And if Grace had succeeded in taking you to Faerie, it would have been even worse.”

I dropped my gaze again. “I know. But the three of you were going to lock me away somewhere, and you’d made it very clear I had no say in anything. I couldn’t stand to live like that.”