•   •   •

I OPENED MY eyes and instantly wished I hadn’t. The headache had grown sharp blades and stabbed them into my skull through my eyes.

The ceiling didn’t look familiar, but the smell in the air was. The exquisite aroma of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, and that weird “medicine” flavor told me I was in a hospital. Also the IV in my arm and the blood pressure cuff were kind of a giveaway. My hand rested on the sheath of my saber. Someone had put my sword in bed with me.

Why did it hurt so much?

A soft voice tinted with a coastal Georgia accent drifted through my headache, that lowland genteel Southern dialect that refused to die out and swallowed consonants on the ends of words so “better” and “over” came out as “bettuh” and “ovuh.” Judging by the intonation in the voice, the doctor was in and not too happy.

What else was new? I had woken up like this to unfamiliar ceilings and upset medmages more times than I could remember. The only question was, which hospital had I ended up in this time?

I tilted my head on the pillow. The good doctor was sitting in a wheelchair talking to another patient or maybe his helper, I couldn’t really see. His voice was quiet and soothing, and I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. If I squinted, I could sort of read his lips. Intracranial hemorrhage. Something told me I should know what that meant.

He turned. Something stretched in my brain and I recognized his face in a flash of pain. Doolittle. Why didn’t I recognize his voice? Wait, if Doolittle was here, that meant we were in the Keep. We couldn’t be in the Keep. Our thirty days weren’t up. I opened my mouth to call out. No words came out.

Okay, if I couldn’t talk, I would sit up.

My back refused to obey. Panic pinched my breath. I felt my body, I felt my legs, my arms, even my fingers and toes. I could feel Sarrat’s sheath under my fingertips. I just couldn’t get them to move. My muscles were out of sync with my mind.

I was paralyzed.

No. No, no, no. I lived by my sword. I couldn’t be paralyzed. I couldn’t.

A word surfaced from somewhere within the recesses of my memory. Hemorrhage. Hemorrhage inside the skull was called intracranial. I knew this. I knew it was bad. I just couldn’t fight through the headache to what it meant.

A door swung open and a woman stuck her head in. “Doolittle?”

Doolittle turned his chair toward her and the look on his face said he would bite her head off if she were within reach. Serious business.

“Trisha asked if you could spare a minute for some paperwork.”

“If Trisha wants to see me, she can come down here.” His voice had a snap to it.

The woman withdrew and shut the door.

The other man said something I didn’t quite catch in an unfamiliar voice. I blinked, desperately trying to bring him into focus. Curran. What the hell was wrong with me?

“There is nothing I can do,” Doolittle answered, his voice stern. “The MRI showed multiple microbleeds. The small vessels inside her brain exploded. They sealed themselves almost immediately, which is why you’re not cradling a corpse right now, and her body began to magically heal, but the damage was done. She should be dead. If it were anybody else, they would be dead, but she is too damn stubborn to die. There is nothing I can do right now. Until the magic comes up, my only option is to manage the symptoms. I’m monitoring her blood pressure. I’m administering mannitol to keep the swelling under control and anticonvulsants so she doesn’t seize again. And I need to be doing all that and you need to be somewhere else. Did I not give you something to do?”

“What if she stops breathing again?”

“If her internal respiratory drive mechanism is affected, I will put her on a ventilator. Go away.”

Curran glanced at me. I blinked and then he was by my bed. “Kate. Baby.”

I still didn’t recognize his voice.

“Say something.”

I opened my mouth. No words came out.

“Curran,” Doolittle growled. “Move.”

Curran slid to the side, and Doolittle in his chair took Curran’s place.

“Can you hear me?” Doolittle asked, pronouncing the words slowly. “Blink once if yes.”

I blinked.

“Your MRI shows ruptures in multiple small blood vessels in your brain,” Doolittle said, his voice calm.

I was bleeding in my brain, I couldn’t move, I had difficulty talking. The symptoms lined up like links in a chain. I opened my mouth. Concentrate. You can do it. One sound at a time.