doctor scrolled back through information on one of the machines, a nurse at her elbow.
“He stabilized,” the other woman said after a moment. “A few minutes ago, his heartbeat stabilized from the arrhythmia we’ve been seeing the past four days …”
“An improvement that wouldn’t have happened without Dafydd.” The truth stretched but didn’t break. Without Dafydd, Aerin never would have come to Boston; without Aerin, Washington’s vitals wouldn’t have stabilized, not as quickly as they had. Lara moved for the door, trusting boldness over rationality. “Call it a fair trade, Doctor. Let us go without a hassle.”
“Wait!” Hope shot through the doctor’s voice and she gestured around, obviously meaning to encompass the hospital as a whole. “Can he do this for everyone?”
Regret made a sharp place in Lara’s heart. “Not any more than you could. I’m sorry.”
Disappointment, but not surprise, etched itself across the woman’s face. Lara could see conflict in her eyes, an uncertainty as to whether she should have them detained, and Lara gave a quick nod toward the door, hastening Kelly and Dafydd out before the doctor made a decision. The dreadful noise of a full glamour at work slid through her mind as Aerin slipped past as well, leaving Lara the last to abandon the room full of hesitant hospital staff. Dafydd scrubbed his hair forward, covering his ears, and hunched his shoulders, head down as they hurried for the elevators and for escape.
Seconds later, Dickon Collins’s voice followed them: “Hang on. I’m coming with you.”
Twenty-six
Hesitation ran through every visible member of their group, but Aerin, through what sounded like gritted teeth, said, “Let him. I cannot maintain this glamour long enough to argue, Truthseeker.”
“I don’t think I could stop him anyway,” Lara muttered, and Dickon slipped through the elevator doors as they began closing. He folded his arms over his chest, making him more of a wall than usual, and turned a hard look on Dafydd.
“What’d you do in there?”
“I did nothing,” Dafydd said with more light amusement in his voice than Lara thought warranted. “Dickon, my old friend, if you insist on accompanying us, perhaps I could walk in your shadow, as it were, while we escape this place.” He lifted his eyes deliberately, showing Dickon his unglamoured countenance, and spread his hands in rueful admission. “Frankly, without your help, I’m uncertain we’ll leave here unmolested.”
Dickon’s jaw clenched, face turning a fiery red brighter even than his hair. “You have a hell of a lot of nerve, Kirwen.”
“I do, and yet you’ve chosen to join us, so I’m forced to determine my nerve will not go unanswered. Please, Dickon,” he added more quietly, and for the first time Lara saw strain lining his ageless face and darkening his amber eyes. “I need your help.”
“Reg is going to live?” Dickon’s gaze went to Lara, who felt a pang of guilt as he ignored Kelly entirely. Not that Kelly had the truthseeking skill that Lara possessed, but a handful of days ago they’d been a couple, planning to wed. To see Kelly so thoroughly dismissed hurt Lara, even if she understood.
And the only answer she had wasn’t quite enough. “I think so. He made it this far, and he’s stabilized now.”
“You only think so?” The elevator doors dinged open behind Dickon, revealing three or four people who automatically moved forward, then startled and fell back again, exchanging glances with each other and at Dickon’s broad back.
Lara shrugged. “I’d promise it was true if I knew it was, Dickon. If he’s strong enough, he’ll live.” That had rung true when Aerin said it, but whether the detective had the strength to rally remained unknown.
Dickon scowled. “He’s tough.”
“Then he will live,” Aerin snapped from nowhere. Dickon flinched, then grunted as Aerin shouldered past him as a blur of headache-inducing light and color in Lara’s vision. She ran to catch up with the Seelie woman, making apologies to the people waiting outside the elevator as they were brushed aside by something they couldn’t see.
Or could half-see, Lara feared, by the time she and Aerin reached the front doors. Aerin knelt off to one side, glamour flickering in and out around her like an ancient film as the others caught up to them. “I’m sorry, Truthseeker. I lack the strength of Rhiannon that flows in Dafydd’s blood. We must find shelter very soon.”
“I’ll get my car.” Kelly ran for the parking lot, but Dickon’s voice stopped her before she’d taken more than a few steps.
“My Bronco’s right there.” He strode toward an oversized vehicle in one of the nearest available parking spaces, Dafydd in his wake. Aerin surged to her feet again, hurrying after them. The vestiges of her glamour fell away entirely before they reached the Bronco, but not by much: Dafydd sprang into it and turned to catch Ioan as Aerin thrust him forward, then crawled into the SUV herself. Lara caught a glimpse of them all through the lightly tinted windows. At a glance they were unearthly in their beauty, but not quite inhuman, not with the windows just slightly marring their visibility. Her knees buckled, relief at the momentary reprieve, and within seconds she and Kelly joined the Seelie and Dickon in his vehicle, both human women crowding into the front seat. Lara put the staff behind her and said, “Don’t touch that,” to the three in back.
Dickon came around to the driver’s side and climbed in, hands working against the steering wheel as he stared at the three alien beings arranging themselves in the Bronco’s backseat. For a long time, no one spoke, until Dafydd finally asked, “What made you change your mind?”
“I’m not sure I have. You said you couldn’t heal,” Dickon said accusingly. “How’d you stabilize Reg?”
“It is not a healing, but a joining with the earth to offer him strength and stability. Lara, why do I understand this man? He speaks your language, not mine.”
“Oh, sure, a joining with the earth,” Dickon said under Lara’s, “I don’t know. Maybe our magics working together did something.”
“Or perhaps your world, in accepting Aerin’s magic, has also granted her the understanding of your tongues. If one of us spoke a third language, we could test the theory,” Dafydd offered. Lara felt disbelief cross her face and bit back a protest as Dafydd grinned. “I know. It doesn’t work that way.”
His deprecation filled with sour tones and Lara shook her head, smiling, too. “Except magic might. I’m grateful for it, anyway.”
“Of course I understa—” Aerin broke off, staring at Kelly before a smile flickered across her own features.
“Interestingly, so do I.” Ioan opened his eyes again, though he looked as weary as before. “That would be more than the earth’s gift. I think the Truthseeker has it right: mortal magic and immortal come together to clear away the difficulties of language. I gather I am in your debt,” he added to Dickon. “I will in some way repay you.”
Dickon muttered, “Great. Can you make me forget any of this ever happened? Kelly, what—” He thumped his head back against the Bronco’s headrest, fingers still white around the steering wheel. Eventually he said, “What’s going on,” like he knew the question was inadequate, but couldn’t come up with a better one.
“Reg is going to be all right,” Kelly said in a low fierce voice. “I can’t undo any of this, Dickon, but he’ll be okay. I’m really sorry to have gotten you involved.”
“You didn’t. David did. He just didn’t tell me.”
“For which I, too, am sorry. Dickon, this is my brother Ioan and my friend Aerin.”
“You’ve mentioned them. You forgot to say they were
“Actually, the brother I mentioned would have been Merrick. Ioan and I have been estranged, for lack of a better word. And I could hardly explain their heritage without explaining my own,” Dafydd said apologetically.
Dickon glowered at him in the rearview mirror. “Which you could’ve done any old time.”
“We should have this discussion somewhere else.” Lara cast a nervous glance at the hospital. “They’re going to notice sooner than later that Ioan’s not in his room anymore.”
