I said a quick prayer of thanks to my god for looking out for me. “Where’s Dad?”
“Outside doing your chores,” Dr. Kowalski replied, nodding at the window.
My eyes went wide in shock.
“I know,” the old woman said with a grin. “Not every day I get a dragon to pull my weeds. But he said you needed to recover your energy so you could give it to him. He’s also much more thorough than you are, so who am I to complain? Maybe the beans will be properly weeded for once.”
Still numb with awe, I got up from the table to get a bowl of wheat berries. I wasn’t even that hungry, I just wanted something normal in this crazy upside-down world where my dad did my chores and the city who never rests fought for my right to sleep in.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Dr. K said as I grabbed the kettle to pour some hot water over my raw grains. “You have a visitor.”
I jumped, nearly pouring scalding water all over my hand. “A visitor? Here?”
I hoped to the DFZ it wasn’t a dragon. That would make the most sense given how last night had ended, but I couldn’t deal with that level of talking so soon after waking up. When Dr. K pointed down the hall at the front parlor, though, it wasn’t the Peacekeeper or the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers or anyone else so huge and troublesome.
It was Nik.
At least, I thought it was Nik. The heavily bandaged man sitting on Dr. K’s cluttered couch wasn’t wearing any of the stuff Nik usually did. His arm was in a sling, and he was dressed in what looked like pajama pants and a white bathrobe over a pair of muddy combat boots, the only remotely Nik-ish thing about him. But even with his face wrapped in gauze and his shoulders hunched up to his ears, I’d know him anywhere. It was my Nik, and he looked absolutely miserable.
“He showed up in the woods just after dawn,” Dr. Kowalski informed me, taking the steaming kettle from my hands before I burned myself. “I had the trees give him the usual run-around, but he wouldn’t give up, so I took pity and let him in before he collapsed from exhaustion.”
I could have hugged her. “Thank you!”
“Yes, well, unconscious bodies are a lot of trouble,” she said, but she was smiling. “But since you’re already taking the morning off, you might as well go see what he wants.”
I didn’t wait to be told twice. I tore out of the kitchen like a shot, racing into the parlor to throw my arms around Nik.
“Ow,” he said when I grabbed him, but he didn’t make me let him go. “Glad to see the old lady wasn’t lying.”
“Not as glad as I am to see you up,” I replied, pulling back so I could look him over.
It wasn’t good. Literally every part of Nik was wrapped in some kind of bandage or cast. Even the thing I’d thought was a bathrobe turned out to be a hospital gown, making me reevaluate my previous statement.
“Should you be up?”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “But I’d rather die in the woods than spend one more hour in that damn hospital bed.” He turned to look out the window, which had a nice view of the front garden where my father was tending the kale bed. “Is this where you’ve been hiding?”
“Here and my apartment,” I said, nodding. “Dr. Kowalski’s the one who’s been teaching me not to suck at magic. But how did you find this place?”
Nik’s face grew supremely annoyed. “I almost didn’t. When I woke up after the fight, I tried to call you, but your phone was off. I called Peter next because he’s the only other person I know that you talk to, and he told me about this place. He neglected to mention it was a goddamn million-mile walk, though.”
“That’s not his fault,” I said quickly. “The woods around here are…variable. It took me hours my first time.”
“I’m just happy the old lady let me wait inside,” Nik said, reaching up with his left hand to rub his bandaged shoulder. “I thought your dad was going to yank my head off like he’s doing to those weeds when I first walked in.”
A week ago, Yong probably would have. I should have been happy that wasn’t the case now, but I was too distracted by what Nik was doing with his hand to be properly appreciative. “Holy crap,” I said, grabbing his wrist and snatching it away from his shoulder so I could be sure. “Nik, where’s your arm?”
Nik’s right arm was entirely gone. The robe’s sleeve had been hanging normally, so I hadn’t noticed it was empty until he’d reached up to rub his shoulder. Now, though, the loss was all I could see.
“It’s being fixed,” Nik replied casually, shrugging off my look of horror. “Apparently I didn’t regulate the force properly when I…” His eyes dropped suddenly, and he took a shaky breath. “Anyway, the artificial tendons got shredded. Rena’s replacing them.”
I nodded, unsure what else to do. “Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s a fake arm. The other stuff hurts way worse, but I’ll deal.”
He didn’t look like he was dealing. “How bad is it, really?” I whispered, reaching out to touch the back of his bandaged palm.
“Not as bad as it looks,” he said, turning his hand over to lace his fingers through mine. “I mean, everything feels like shit, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. It’s just…” He closed his eyes with a sigh. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
He didn’t have to tell me what “that” meant. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he said, jaw clenching. “I swore I’d never be like that again. I sure as hell didn’t want to do it in front of you.”
“It
