Page 147 of Elven Shadow

“Like dependence, for one. Addiction. Abuse. Like possible body-magic deterioration. Like insanity, for all I fucking know. That’s not what it’s meant for,anyway.”

“No,” Rebecca said, using what little of her strength remained to force as much calm into her voice as she possibly could. “It’s meant to help me do the shit I have to donow. Your words, Healer. Not mine.”

“Yeah, but—”

“So unless you have some other genius plan up your sleeve,” Rebecca continued, “I need you to do your job as Shade’s healer, and right now, the vials are just gonna have to cut it.”

Zida pulled away from her and backed up before squinting at Rebecca with almost as much suspicion Rebecca got from Maxwell every time they looked at each other. “And what happens if I refuse?”

“Well I haven’t given you a direct order yet.” Rebecca sagged against the chair, her eyelids heavier than bricks when she swung her head back up toward the old woman. “Is that really something I need to start doing?”

“Well shit.” Zida spun her fanny pack around her waist again to root around through her supplies on the go.

Good. That was all the answer Rebecca needed.

“And don’t tell anyone, Zida. Okay?”

“Pretty hard to ignore there’s something wrong with you if someone’s looking close enough anyway,” the healer grumbled. “’Cause you look like shit. But you’re the boss now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Warning taken under consideration. Thanks.” Rebecca flipped her hand over and extended it toward the old daraku, who paused in her urgent rooting around in the fanny pack to shoot her patient an unamused scowl.

“Do you try this hard to be cute all the time?” Zida asked.

Rebecca raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” The healer’s crooked hand emerged from her fanny pack before she slapped another clear glass vial that looked just as empty as the previous two down into Rebecca’s open, waiting palm.

Oh, so she’d hand over the meds but couldn’t be bothered to open the damn thing for her patient this time.

Rebecca struggled with the vial’s stopper, had to clasp it between her teeth just to wiggle it out with a sharp squeak and a pop, and even before she fully began to inhale, the healer’s emergency pick-me-up forced its way into her nose and mouth, down her trachea, and into her lungs.

All the color in her vision brightened. The lights flared in intensity while every color and mundane detail of the room around her took on an abnormally pleasant clarity—the kind of vividness threatening on sensory overload.

Even for someone like Rebecca, who’d spent decades purposefully overloading all her senses so she could handle it in a pinch.

Energy and strength and vitality surged through her with the blast of blinding white light illuminating in her vision.

By the Blood, this invisible stuff was like a full-body battery pack.

Sitting up straighter in her chair, Rebecca exhaled, her breath ending in a sigh of relief. “That’ssomuch better…”

“Yeah, fornow,” Zida quipped. “But you gotta know you can’t keep this up forever. Not like this.”

“You’ve made that perfectly clear already. I’m especially not likely to forget it now.”

“Uh-huh.” Pursing her puckered lips again into a different kind of scowl that could have either been growing annoyance or thinly veiled amusement, Zida spun her bulging fanny pack around her waist again so the bag settled against her lower back.

Then she folded her arms. “Anything else, O’ Roth-Da’al?”

“That’s it for now.” Rebecca didn’t have the energy to respond to the old woman’s biting sarcasm as Zida shuffled toward the door. “Oh, but let me know when security leaves the building with that box.”

Zida turned to look at her over one hunched shoulder and raised a barely-there eyebrow. “You want me to watch a box?”

“The one with all the body parts that refuse to decompose,” Rebecca explained as she clenched and flexed her hands over and over, marveling at the power and strength flowing through them now with another dose of mystery medicine. She knew it was short-lived, but it sure did feel fantastic while it lasted. “The one with all the homunculi parts. And Hector’s.”

“Yeah I figured outwhichbox.” Zida scratched the side of her lumpy head above one enormous pointed ear. “What I’m asking now iswhy.”

Directing her attention from her hands—both of which held as steady and sure as they had before Rebecca’s injuries—to the old healer’s face, Rebecca tilted her head and didn’t bother trying to hide her sarcasm this time.

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