Anger rises inside me, and a machine to my left beeps as my heart rate increases. Mr. Burrows let me believe Angela and her children would die. That I was their only hope.
I shake my head. I’m angry, but I’m also embarrassed. I fell for it.
Sang looks so upset. “Mr. Burrows called me this morning when he realized you were gone. It took hours to find you—you went the wrong way on the main road,” he says. “You were delirious from the heat.”
“Angela is okay? Her kids?”
“Yes,” Sang says, and my whole body calms with that single word. “They’ll be fine, entirely thanks to your hailstones. There were so many. How did you do it?”
“I imagined myself in the river,” I say quietly.
The gold in Sang’s eyes blurs.
But then I remember him talking with Mr. Burrows, and I’m angry again.
I pull my arm out of his reach and sit up straight.
“How could you not warn me?”
Sang doesn’t respond right away. He looks confused. When he finally speaks, his voice is strained. “Warn you? I didn’t even know it was happening.”
“He said you knew I was with him.”
“I did, but that’s all I knew. If I had known what he was planning, I never would have let it happen.” His hands are balled into fists on my bed, so tight they’re shaking.
I don’t want to believe him. I remember the way he stood on the field with Mr. Burrows and laughed with him, and I’m ready to yell that I never want to see him again.
“But I saw you with him and Ms. Suntile right before he told me we’d be doing the test.”
“If you can only trust me if I never speak with Mr. Burrows, we may as well give up now.”
“It isn’t just that. He’s your mentor, Sang. You respect him.”
“I need to talk with him when we get back. See where his head was at.” Again, I almost yell at him, demand that he leave. But then he hangs his head and says, “I might have to reevaluate some things.” And the pain in his voice is so apparent that it takes all the fight out of me.
He respects Mr. Burrows the way I respected Mr. Hart. Seeing the person you’ve looked up to morph into someone so different would be devastating.
I’m quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew about the test.”
Sang looks directly at me. “I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you think I would be okay with something like that.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I don’t say anything at all.
Dr. Singh comes in to check on me once more before leaving for the night. She listens to my heart and checks my IV, then pulls up a chair.
“Are you family?” she asks Sang.
He shakes his head. “Should I leave?”
Dr. Singh looks at me. “He can stay,” I say.
“We’re going to do some blood work in the morning, once you’ve had more fluids and remain stable through the night. At a temperature of one hundred and seven degrees, multiple organ failure can occur. At one hundred and ten, brain damage and death. Your temperature was one degree higher than that when you showed up, and quite frankly, I didn’t think you’d make it.”
I take in a sharp breath.
“We won’t have the full picture until we run your labs in the morning, but your vitals are good, and you’re not showing any signs of distress. You’re extremely lucky, Clara, even for a witch. Try to get some sleep tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Dr. Singh walks out of the room, and I hear her tell my nurse to page her if anything changes overnight.
I turn to look at Sang, but his eyes are on the chair Dr. Singh was in just moments ago.
“I’m tired,” I say.
Sang stands. “I’ll go.”
But the thought of being alone terrifies me, as if I could end up back in that field at any moment, completely exposed and so weak I can hardly stand. I reach out and touch my fingers to his. I fight the urge to pull him into me, to fold into him. To press my head to his chest and let the beating of his heart lull me to sleep.
“Maybe don’t?”
Sang looks down at his hand, then back at me. Something like relief flares in his eyes. He nods, leaves the room, and comes back a few minutes later with a pillow and blanket.
He doesn’t say anything. He simply turns out the light, walks to the couch, and lies down.
I can’t see him, but his presence is enough. If I weren’t so tired, if I weren’t so angry, it might worry me that him being here matters to me. That it matters more than it should.
The machines in my room beep in time with my heart, and for some reason I can’t explain, it comforts me.
“Thank you for coming for me,” I say into the darkness.
A pause. Then, “Always.”
Chapter Twenty
“There is nothing more powerful than being understood.”
—A Season for Everything
All of my blood work comes back normal, and I’m sent home the next day. Dr. Singh says mine is one of the most surprising cases she has seen in all her years of medicine, witch or shader.
The car ride back to Eastern is long. Sang asks repeatedly if I’m comfortable, fidgeting with the temperature control and telling me multiple times how to adjust my seat. But other than being weak and tired, I’m fine.
Both of our hands sit open on the center console, just inches apart. The space feels alive, as if there’s an electrical current running between us. I’ve never been more aware of my hand in my life.
I
