It made me want to cry and I didn’t know why. I squeezed his hand. “You really think Curran will wait for me?”

“He gave me his word. Trust me, he isn’t going anywhere. He is all yours, so yes, he will wait.”

“But will my father?”

Doolittle sighed.

“What will happen when my father finds out I can’t hold my sword? Will he wait three years or will he burn the city to the ground because I can’t stop him?”

“It shouldn’t matter,” Doolittle said gently.

“But it does.”

“You’ve made an agreement.”

“And I trust that agreement only because I’m here to enforce it. He knows that his power isn’t infinite. In a fight to the death I will hurt him and that worries him. I need to be capable of fighting him. I can’t protect the city if I am not.”

“It isn’t the time to worry about the city,” Doolittle told me. “This is the time to worry about you.”

The silence stretched between us. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that after everything we had gone through, claiming the city could cost me everyone I loved. It wasn’t fair, but life rarely was. Good people died. Bad people had happy lives. That was why someone had to take a stand, and that someone was me.

“Curran loves me,” I said. “Nobody in my past loved me that much. I see it in his eyes. I want him to stay with me. I want Julie to stay with me. I want my family. I want all of you.” I would do anything to keep my family. Anything, except betray everything I stood for. “But I am alive because the city saved me. It gave me its magic when I was dying.”

“Kate . . .” Doolittle said gently. “The technology has been up the whole time.”

“I know. But all of us, everything that is alive, produces and stores magic. We hold on to it even during the strongest tech wave. That’s why shapeshifters can still change their form. Last night, when I was dying, every living thing in the boundaries of the land I claimed surrendered a tiny fraction of that magic and offered it to me. And I took it.” My voice shook. “I took it to survive.”

Doolittle opened his mouth.

“Look into my brain. You will see progress that shouldn’t be there. I’m speaking in complete sentences.” I leaned forward. “I could’ve asked for more. I could’ve taken it all to heal myself. I could’ve drained all of you dry.”

Doolittle’s eyes widened as the meaning of my words sank in. I could’ve unleashed a blight to save myself. He recoiled.

We both knew what happened to living creatures when magic was suddenly ripped away from them. A year ago, the Lighthouse Keepers, a terrorist organization obsessed with banishing magic, unleashed a device that did precisely that at Palmetto, a small town on the outskirts of Atlanta. When we got there, Palmetto had become a mass grave.

Doolittle swallowed. “Roland can’t be allowed to claim this land.”

“He won’t as long as I live. I’ve assumed the responsibility for it. I’m meant to protect it. We are bound now by something I don’t fully understand, but I know that this land didn’t sacrifice its magic so I could lie in bed for three years taking my time. Right now there is a creature out there terrorizing the city and sending hordes of ghouls to do its dirty work. It is immune to my magic, which means its powers and mine have something in common. My father could’ve sent it here. I have to stop it. I can’t turn my back on Atlanta. It would mean turning my back on Curran, and Julie, and you. I care too much about all of you. Heal me now.”

Doolittle shook his head, rubbing his eyes. “Once I start, I will have to finish. It will take a long time, it won’t be pleasant, and you may not recall anything surrounding the moment of your injury. That I cannot heal.”

“Thank you.”

He sighed. “Everyone has a cross to bear.”

“Am I yours?”

He nodded. “I keep trying to decide if it’s a punishment or a blessing.”

“A bit of both.” I smiled. “You might as well bring him back. At least we’ll both know what we’re in for from the start.”

•   •   •

IT FELT LIKE hundreds of spiders crawling through my brain. It made the inside of my nose itch. Occasionally they tugged on something and then nausea gripped me. After I heaved for the first time, Curran brought a big bucket for me. I took it away from him. Having him hold it for me would’ve been going too far. I still had standards. Nauseated and weak, but what are you going to do?