Magic Shifts

  I’d never felt so helpless.

  “Home,” I told Doolittle.

  “Soon,” he promised.

  Liar. I had to get out of here. I didn’t want to end my life in this hospital bed. I had spent too long without magic, and my body was giving out. I felt weaker and weaker. They had to take me home. I wanted to die in our house. “Too long . . .”

  “You’ve only been in here a few hours. It feels longer because you keep waking up despite the sedative.”

  “Julie.”

  “Julie will be fine. You don’t have to worry about that right now,” he said. “Focus on healing. Rest.”

  • • •

  I WOKE UP to pain. My brain was slow and confused. My mouth tasted like medicine. I was so tired. I was sinking deeper and deeper into the murky water of pain and exhaustion. I knew the signs. My body was giving out. Why wouldn’t they just let me go home . . .

  It was night and my room was quiet. Doolittle still sat in his chair, his paperback on his lap, his eyes closed. A hair-thin line of bright orange light marked the edge of the door—someone had failed to close it all the way. Quiet voices floated into the room. I had to strain to make out the words.

  “What if she doesn’t pull through?”

  Julie.

  “She will.” Curran. His voice was rock steady, quiet, strong, reassuring.

  “Ascanio said she might be paralyzed. He said she could get amnesia . . .”

  A spark of the old me fought to the surface of the pain for a brief second. Damn it, could that kid not keep his mouth shut for once?

  “Don’t listen to what that idiot says. Kate wouldn’t abandon her family. That’s not who she is and that’s not what she does.”

  Which Kate are we talking about? Because the one in this bed didn’t have a choice.

  “But what if she doesn’t?” Julie pressed. Her voice was trembling. “She isn’t acting like herself. She’s a fighter and she isn’t even fighting. Ascanio said he heard her say she wants to go home to die.”

  If I got better, that bouda was going to regret it.

  “Ascanio shouldn’t run his mouth,” Curran said. “Sometimes when people have head injuries, it changes who they are for a little while. She will be back to normal soon.”

  And often that change was permanent. I’d killed a man who had turned into a violent sadistic drifter after suffering a fractured skull.

  “I know it’s scary. But you have to trust Doolittle. She is under heavy sedation. She just isn’t herself right now,” Curran said. “When the magic comes, Doolittle will heal her.”

  “What if she never comes home? What would I . . . I won’t have anybody . . .”

  “You will have me. She will come home, but if she doesn’t, I will still be there,” Curran said. “We are family. You will always have a place in my house. I won’t abandon you. If something happens to me, Andrea and Raphael will step up. Derek will always be there for you. You have people, Julie. You are not alone.”

  You are not alone . . .

  Someone upstairs must’ve really hated me. I wanted to have people, too. I had wanted to hear those words for so long, and now, just after I’d had a small crumb of happiness, I was about to lose all of it over something so stupid. I had to get better. I had to get better now.

  I clenched my teeth.

  This wouldn’t end me. Not like this. Not right now. I would survive this.

  I fought through the pounding in my head, trying to find something, anything, to pull me out of the cold murky depths to the surface. I just had to survive until the magic hit.

  I would take anything. Any help, no matter how small.

  I refused to sink. I would walk out of here. I would be with Curran again. I would see Julie grow up.

  I want to survive.

  I fought for it, trying to keep myself up, trying to reach the surface, but I kept sinking.

  Something shifted deep inside me, an unidentified muscle clenched tight for too long relaxing in a flood of new ache, and then I felt it, a tiny hint of a current pushing me up. It was weak, oh so weak, but it was there. I wrapped myself in it and for a brief moment my addled brain recognized it for what it was: the city I’d claimed surrendering what little residual magic it had kept during the technology. The land I’d claimed was trying to keep me alive.

  It wasn’t enough to lift me up. It was barely there, but it stretched to me. I felt the city breathing. It was filled with life. Tiny creatures squirming through the dirt, plants growing in the soil, ivy and kudzu climbing up the ruins, skittish things hiding in their burrows, predators crouching in the dark, people in their homes, all of them sacrificing a tiny crumb of the magic stored within their bodies. It hurt them, it was precious, yet still they gave it to me because I asked.

  I stopped sinking.

  • • •

  “. . . GO BACK AND tell him that if he thinks he can dictate who I can and can’t treat, I quit,” Doolittle said. “And I won’t be coming back until hell freezes over.”

  I opened my eyes. The room was still dimly lit. My head still hurt, but I was floating.

  A woman stood next to Doolittle, her face obscured. Curran leaned against the other bed like a dark shadow. His arms were crossed on his chest. His eyes were glowing pale gold. Menace rolled off him, and the air in the room turned thick and tense.

  “That’s not what the Beast Lord says. The law states that a retired alpha can’t be in the Keep during the time of separation. Which is why I brought down this paper.” The woman held the paper up to Doolittle. “This is an amendment to the Pack law code that gives you the right to treat patients who are not members of the Pack in the Pack’s facilities if you determine that their condition requires emergency treatment.”

  “This is a hospital. I don’t need anyone’s permission to treat a patient.” Doolittle took the paper and read it.

  The woman looked at Curran. “Curran.”

  Curran’s face was grim. “Trisha. How did he manage to push that through? The Council wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “They don’t know it’s for you,” Trisha said. “They went into session just before you got here, and Jim brought it up under the Cooperation Act, making a case that if there is an injured shapeshifter within Pack borders, there may not always be enough time to observe all proprieties. He bundled it with an addendum to the border policy, and they passed it without looking closely at it.”

  “Smart,” Curran said.

  “It’s Jim,” Trisha, said as if it explained everything. “Nobody except the personal guard knows you’re here. It will get out eventually, but the Council has left the Keep, so we bought you a few more hours. How is she?”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to be a focal point right now.

  “Resting,” Curran said.

  “Nasrin!” I heard Doolittle roll into the hallway. “I need a second opinion on this paper . . .”

  “What will you do if she remains paralyzed?” Trisha asked quietly.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Curran said.

  He would. I knew he would. I opened my eyes.

  “My aunt is quadriplegic,” she murmured. “It is extremely difficult. We could keep her here for you . . .” She caught herself. “Sorry.”

  Excellent timing. Perhaps she should borrow one of my knives and stab him while she was at it.

  Doolittle rolled back, the paper in his hand. “We signed it.”

  Curran took it from his hand and gave it to Trisha. She took it.

  “Did Jim need anything else?” Curran asked, his voice cold.

  “No.” Trisha realized she was being dismissed. “Good luck.”

  She turned around and walked out.

  Curran looked at the closed door for a long moment.

  “It’s okay,” Doolittle murmured, his voice soothing. ?
??Come on. Let’s get you some tea . . .”

  Curran shook his head.

  “Stay right here,” Doolittle said, rolling to the door. “I’ll be right back with the tea.”

  The door closed behind Doolittle. For a moment nothing happened, and then Curran’s pose shifted. Tension gripped his spine and his shoulders. He looked like a man backed into a corner, outnumbered and injured, resigned to his fate, but grimly determined to stand his ground. His face was neutral like a mask, but his eyes weren’t. They brimmed with pain and fear.

  Oh, Curran.

  It tried to bend him, and he wasn’t used to bending. He didn’t know how and he was fighting it, but whatever anxiety churned inside him now was slowly winning. It would drag him down and crush him. All of his power, will, and explosive strength meant nothing and he knew it. He looked like a man at the deathbed of someone he loved.

  That someone was me. I put him through this.

  I wasn’t even that lovable to begin with. I was a selfish ass, but somehow something I did made this man love me, deeply and without reservation. He knew things about me that I would die to keep secret. I trusted him more than I trusted anyone in my life. I mattered to him. He was suffering and I wanted it to stop. I wanted to see him happy. I loved him so much.

  I meant to tell him that if he chased Trisha down and brought her back here, I’d punch her in the arm for him. I managed one word. “Bitch.”

  He pushed off from the bed against which he leaned. All signs of worry vanished from him. He forced a neutral expression onto his face. My Beast Lord.

  “Come,” I whispered.

  He came over to my bed.

  “Closer . . .”

  He leaned in closer.

  It took all of my will. I lifted my hand and punched his jaw. It was the saddest punch on the planet. My fingers barely grazed his stubble and then my arm gave out and fell back on the bed.

  Curran blinked.

  “You looked sad,” I explained.

  “Is this you trying to cheer me up?”

  “What are you . . . going . . . to do about it?” I asked. “Your Wussiness?”

  He touched his index finger to my forehead. His voice was rough. “Tap. You’re out, Ass Kicker.”

  “I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re in here punching each other and playing grab-ass,” Doolittle said from somewhere in the room. “I expect this from you, Kate, because you have no sense, but you, you should know better. Roughhousing in the hospital. Drink your tea.” Doolittle thrust one of the glasses at Curran.

  Curran obediently took the glass and drained it.

  “The tea was a lie,” I told him quietly.

  He nodded. “He spikes it with a sedative.”

  So he knew and drank it anyway. “What kind of a sedative takes down . . . a shapeshifter?”

  “I don’t know.” Curran’s face was relaxing. He sat on my bed, moving very carefully. “He won’t tell me.”

  “He needs it,” Doolittle said. “He hasn’t slept since you got here.”

  “You get your tea through your IV,” Doolittle told me.

  “No more tea. It makes me loopy and sad.”

  “I would be most appreciative if you refrained from telling me how to do my job. If I need some guidance on how to best skewer something twenty times my size and get myself nearly dead in the process, I’ll ask you. There is only one medmage in this room, and since I am that medmage, I’ll decide what medicine to administer and when. And for your information, it is your head injury that is the culprit, not the sedative.”

  “Bummer.”

  I felt oddly light and sleepy.

  “Lie with me,” I whispered.

  Curran stretched out next to me. Our arms were touching. The smell of him drifted over, so familiar and comforting.

  Curran’s fingers held my hand, his thumb gently stroking my skin. I recalled the way he tasted. The feel of his body on mine. The weight of it. The strength of the arms wrapped around me. His eyes. The way he looked at me . . .

  “Stay with me, Kate,” he said.

  “I will,” I promised.

  CHAPTER

  12

  THE MAGIC WAVE jolted me out of my sleep, the crushing headache a familiar agony by now. This one-night stand with my stroke had lasted way too long. The pain was intense but my thoughts were no longer jumbled. The current of the city had pushed me a few inches higher.

  I opened my eyes to the morning light and saw Doolittle looking at me. Curran sat on the other bed.

  “This is what we’ve been waiting for.” Doolittle rolled his chair close to me.

  “Oh boy.”

  “Leave, please,” Doolittle said.

  Curran rose and took a step to me.

  “Remember now,” Doolittle warned him. “We have an agreement. I’ll hold you to it.”

  Curran stepped to my bed. His arms closed around me and he squeezed me to him. My bones groaned. His voice was a low growl. “I will wait for you. As long as it takes. Even if you never choose to come back. But it’s your choice.”

  He let me go, turned, and marched out. Okay, then.

  Doolittle regarded me with his dark eyes. “Your brain is very delicate. Think of your mind as a forest crisscrossed by many paths along which signals travel to your body. Some are clear, some become overgrown over time, but all have formed naturally. Right now these paths are damaged. I can use magic to restore them.”

  I sensed a big “but” coming. “But?”

  “Think of me as clear-cutting the paths by force instead of allowing the natural development to take place. I will do my absolute best, but my power is limited. The pathways I create won’t match the old pathways precisely. I have done this previously on four different occasions. I’ve restored function and, in one case, memories lost during an amnesia-inducing event; however, one of my patients had a drastic personality change and two others developed severe anxiety and reported episodes of depersonalization, during which they felt unable to control themselves, as if the events they experienced were happening to someone else. They felt disconnected from reality and disconnected from their memories. One of them improved over time. The other left her family and moved out of state. She had four children, a supportive husband, and elderly parents. Nobody has heard from her in over nine years.”

  “You are a bucket of cheer, Doc.”

  “There is an alternative,” Doolittle said. “You could let the healing take place gradually. There is a possibility that your brain will restore itself.”

  “How big a possibility?”

  “A significant possibility. The only reason you are alive and have regained some minor motor function is that immediately after the trauma that caused the strokes, the blood vessels in your brain sealed themselves. The process of healing had already started before you were ever brought to me. I believe that over time, with my help, you will recover most of what you lost.”

  “How long would that take?”

  “I don’t know.” Doolittle’s leaned forward. “But I’ve observed it happen.”

  “How long did it take in the cases you observed?”

  “Three years to complete recovery for one patient and fourteen months for the other.”

  Three years.

  “How long if you heal me now?”

  “It will be miraculous,” Doolittle said. “You will walk out of here when I’m finished and no doubt run straight into another foolish fight.”

  That was a given.

  “I want you to know that you have a choice,” Doolittle said. “Curran is . . . Well, there is a reason we all followed him. When he wants something, he can be very persuasive.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “He will abide by your decision, I promise you that. His feelings, or anyone else’s feelings except your own, do not matter h
ere. Only you can dictate the speed of your recovery. We don’t fully understand how the mind works, but everything within it is connected. There is no guarantee that after I mitigate the damage, you will experience the same emotions you once felt toward people in your life. Curran will wait for you.”

  If Doolittle healed me, there was a chance I would no longer want to be me. How hard must it have been for Curran to walk out of this room and take that chance?

  “He will take care of you and he won’t abandon you if you choose to take your time. Neither will Julie. I will always be here.”

  There was only one thing I could say to that. “Thank you.”

  He reached over and gently touched my hand. His stern medmage composure broke. “You shouldn’t have left the Keep. Look what happened.”

  It made me want to cry and I didn’t know why. I squeezed his hand. “You really think Curran will wait for me?”

  “He gave me his word. Trust me, he isn’t going anywhere. He is all yours, so yes, he will wait.”

  “But will my father?”

  Doolittle sighed.

  “What will happen when my father finds out I can’t hold my sword? Will he wait three years or will he burn the city to the ground because I can’t stop him?”

  “It shouldn’t matter,” Doolittle said gently.

  “But it does.”

  “You’ve made an agreement.”

  “And I trust that agreement only because I’m here to enforce it. He knows that his power isn’t infinite. In a fight to the death I will hurt him and that worries him. I need to be capable of fighting him. I can’t protect the city if I am not.”

  “It isn’t the time to worry about the city,” Doolittle told me. “This is the time to worry about you.”

  The silence stretched between us. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that after everything we had gone through, claiming the city could cost me everyone I loved. It wasn’t fair, but life rarely was. Good people died. Bad people had happy lives. That was why someone had to take a stand, and that someone was me.

  “Curran loves me,” I said. “Nobody in my past loved me that much. I see it in his eyes. I want him to stay with me. I want Julie to stay with me. I want my family. I want all of you.” I would do anything to keep my family. Anything, except betray everything I stood for. “But I am alive because the city saved me. It gave me its magic when I was dying.”