Page 126 of Elven Shadow

On the verge of panic and only half-listening, Rebecca scanned the infirmary, ignoring Nyx’s bug-eyed stare until she found her jacket neatly folded on the stainless-steel bedside table doubling as the supply cart.

“You aren’t gonna, like, disappear on us again, are you?” Nyx asked.

“Just making sure I’m still in one piece,” Rebecca grumbled before reaching for the edge of her folded jacket and drawing it quickly into her lap. “Why are you here?”

“To check on you. Again.” Nyx watched her diligently, looking more concerned about her own wellbeing now. “Because Iknewyou’d come back. River wouldn’t stop talking about how Elves’ bodies keep living for a while even after the rest of them is gone, but I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.”

“Interesting.” Rebecca flipped her jacket over to reach into one pocket, then the other. Her fingers closed around the smooth edges of the tiny box of pristinely oiled wood, and all the building tension flooded out of her with one long sigh.

It was still here.

“So you’re here to prove I’m not dead?” she asked, leaning slowly back against the propped-up pillows behind her.

Nyx let out another nervous giggle. “I mean, I know you’re not dead. I didn’t think you would be, even this whole time. I told them you’d come through. That you wouldn’t be out much longer, then you’d come back good as new. I’m not the only one, either.”

“But some people thought I wouldn’t make it?” Rebecca asked. “Not a lot of faith floating around this place when someone starts talking about a dead but not-dead elf right after she almost got stuck through the throat. After…what? Only two or three hours?”

Nyx grimaced, then her violet eyes flew wide open again, and she shifted from foot to foot. “Two orthreehours…”

“Or more?” Rebecca added, eyeing Nyx from the corners of her eyes.

“Try forty-eight.” Nyx wrang her hands, her nerves growing with little flashing sparks of violet light around her fingers. “Hours, I mean.”

“What?”

With a squeak, Nyx leapt backward, disappeared into thin air with a pop and a burst of crackling violet light leaving that effervescent vinegar smell in the air. Then she reappeared on the far side of the infirmary, her back bumping against another rolling cart filled with various supplies.

The cart crashed backward against the wall, all the vials and implements and tools rattling against each other. Something toppled onto the floor, but neither Rebecca nor Nyx paid it much attention, because Nyx was terrified of the elf.

And the elf was certain she’d misheard.

“Did you just say I’ve been lying here for the last forty-eight hours?” Rebecca asked, pointing at the cot beneath her.

“Maybe…” Wringing her hands again, Nyx took another step backward and bumped into the supply cart all over again. “But—”

“Nyx, you’re the one standing in front of me right now, so you’re the one who’s gonna tell me what’s going on—”

“Okay!” With another squeak, the katari threw her hands up beside her head. One of them smacked against a wall-mounted cabinet behind her, bumping the door open before a glowing bottle of unidentified liquid toppled off the shelf.

Nyx’s next shriek sounded like a hiccup as she fumbled with the tumbling bottle and finally caught it. Then she straightened and held the container in both hands for dear life. “It’s been forty-eight hours, okay? That’s what I said. And nobody knew what was gonna happen to you.”

“I wasn’t even hurt that badly…” Rebecca muttered under her breath. Then her gaze fell on her left forearm, where the homunculus’s handprint had been dutifully wrapped in bandages, most likely cleaned and covered in one of Zida’s salves as well.

She’d lost two whole days. Anything could have happened in those two days. Especially after both Hector’s and Aldous’s deaths.

With another sigh, she tried to adjust herself more comfortably on the cot, closed her eyes, and gestured for Nyx to approach again. “All right, then. Fine. What else did I miss?”

“Oh! I mean, you know…not really all that much… There wassomething,but maybe it’s better if…”

“Go on,” Rebecca prompted, hoping she’d captured just the right combination of reassurance and warning in her voice before another wave of dizziness barreled through her head and made her close her eyes again. “Please, Nyx.”

“Right. Well, after…everything went down in the garage…” Nyx gingerly set the medicine bottle down on the counter behind her, then resumed her usual handwringing. “I mean, a lot of us,mostof us, just assumed you and Zida came back up here so she could treat you, right? Easy peasy. But then she came back and told us you were still out. With no viable ETA. Or…ETR, I guess. Estimated time of recovery…”

“Nyx.”

“Then things just kinda…kept going on their own. After that.”

So even the old healer had no idea what was wrong with her Elven patient. Great.

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