Cheyenne laughed and didn’t say anything.
“But seriously.” Ember sat back in her chair and tilted her head. “If there’s something else going on, something that’s not related to me getting out of this chair at some point in my life, you better tell me.”
“Nothing’s going on, Em. I promise.” The tingling prickle rose again on the half-drow’s neck, moving slowly across her shoulders. Not my drow magic. No one is standing behind me. What the hell?
“You promise?” Ember raised an eyebrow, and Cheyenne met her friend’s gaze and held it.
Don’t look away. “I promise. And I’ll get it out of the way now and also promise that I’ll tell you about anything else that comes up, whether you’re with me when it happens or not. Like I’ve been doing.”
“Yeah, okay.” A skeptical smile bloomed on the fae’s lips. “Then stop looking like an amateur PI undercover for the first time, huh?”
“You know what? I’ve been sneaking around places without anybody seeing me for, like, as long as I can remember. No amateur sleuthing here, okay?” The halfling laughed and tried to ignore the constant tingling on her neck and shoulders. “Honestly, Ms. Gaderow, I’m a little insulted by your assumptions.”
“Uh-huh. Save the Bianca Summerlin act for your students, Professor.”
“You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“Maybe.”
They sat like that for a moment, and the halfling found her gaze drifting back toward the lobby and the patients milling around among nurses and assistants passing in and out of doors.
“Ember?”
Both magicals turned toward the open door on their left, and Ember raised her hand. “Yep.” Then she wheeled toward the nurse standing with a clipboard in hand and looked over her shoulder at Cheyenne. “Come on.”
“What?” The halfling sat upright in the chair. “No, it’s okay, Em. I don’t need to go with you.”
“I know that. Get your ass out of that chair and come with me.”
Cheyenne gripped the edge of the chair and looked at the woman. “Is that okay?”
The woman shrugged and glanced at Ember. “If that’s what she wants, no problem.”
“So get over here.” The fae jerked her head toward the door.
Leaping to her feet, the halfling rubbed her hands down her pantlegs and made her way through the door while the woman held it for her. “Thanks.”
“Of course. Right this way, Ember. My name’s Sarah. I’m Dr. Boseley’s assistant.”
“Hi. This is my friend Cheyenne.”
The halfling nodded with a thin smile. “Moral support.”
Sarah chuckled. “That’s great. Everybody needs someone in their corner now and then, right? That’s what we’re here for too. Dr. Boseley already has an excellent treatment plan written up for you. She’ll go over all that with you first. Talk about how you’re doing now, what you’d like to see happen in the next six, twelve, eighteen months. Then she’ll explain the different phases of your personalized physical therapy plan, and you guys can start today if you’re ready.”
“I was ready before I left the hospital.”
Sarah opened a glass door into what looked like a weight room at a gym, only with machines Cheyenne didn’t recognize and a bunch of other unknown equipment. “This is the ‘gym’ where you’ll be doing all the hard work with Dr. Boseley. You’ll also have a list of exercises you can do at home between sessions. Feel free to take a look around. She should be in here in just a couple of minutes.”
“Great. Thank you.” Ember smiled sweetly at the assistant, and Sarah returned the gesture to both magicals before opening the door again.
Cheyenne peered through the glass wall of the gym, watching the woman walk down the hall toward another office or exam room. “Seems like a decent place, right?”
“It looks like a gym.”
The halfling chuckled. “Yeah, I had the same thought. But look, you have this whole giant PT playground all to yourself!”
“Ha-ha.” Ember pulled a hair tie off her wrist and twisted her hair into a high ponytail. “Is it weird that I’m only slightly nervous?”
“Not even a little.” Cheyenne gave the room and all the equipment another sweeping glance. “Three days a week in here, and you’ll be back on your feet in no time.”
“That’s the plan. I don’t care how low the full recovery rate is.”
“You got this, Em.” Looking down, the halfling saw her friend’s hands clench around the edges of the chair’s armrest. “Oh, my God. It just hit me.”
“What?”
“These are your trials.”
Ember leaned sideways in her chair and barked a laugh. “This isn’t anything like that.”
“Okay, yeah, you’re not a—” Cheyenne glanced through the glass walls and lowered her voice. “You’re not a drow, and you don’t have a stupid box that spins and flies and throws spells at you.” The fae girl scoffed. “But this is your big thing, right? You come in here, you have Dr. Boseley to help you through it. I haven’t even met the woman, and I’m pretty sure I’d take her over Corian any day.”
“Oh, jeeze.”
“I’m serious.” The halfling chuckled. “You do the work, you have an endgame, you level up, and when you complete your trials, you get a badass cane from your best friend.”
Ember groaned and dipped her head. “If I were anyone else, Cheyenne, I might be insulted by the comparison.”
“Hey, if you were anyone else, you’d think I was insane, talking about flying boxes and spells and drow trials.”
They shared a laugh. “I appreciate your attempt to make me feel less weirded out by all this.”
“Is it working?”
“By a marginal percentage, maybe.”
“You’re telling me it’s working.” The halfling pointed at her friend and grinned. “I’ll keep it up.”
“Totally not necessary.”
“But it’s working!”
Ember smacked the half-drow’s wrist with the back of her hand. “Cut it out.”
“Oh, one more point for Ember’s trials. You don’t have to run around dodging lightning bolts. That’s a good one.”
“Make it stop.”
The door opened, and a woman with tight, bright-red curls falling just below her chin stepped in to join them. “Hi,
