One more long look at Linc, and then at me, and Karish shed the aristocratic hauteur like a cloak that had gone out of style. “Michael, my love,” he said, all cheer. “If you could freshen everyone’s drinks”—he was momentarily interrupted by loud sounds of appreciation from his guests—“I will be your slave forever. And my lord and lady musicians, it might be a good idea if you played a few of the milder selections from your repertoire. I think everyone’s a little overheated right now.” That brought good-natured shouts of denial from his guests, but not one protested. They settled into conversation, two or three people shifting about the room pouring liquid into goblets. The music started up again, light and soothing.

  I wanted to crawl into a hole, to disappear. I had ruined Karish’s evening, and that of his guests. The reason was valid, but I really wished it had happened differently.

  Karish touched my arm. The brief contact sent an almost painful jolt through my whole body. Still a tad sensitive from the earlier music. “Come to my room,” said Karish. “We can talk there.”

  I felt a little alarmed as I followed him. He hadn’t been “occupied” in his bedroom, had he? He wasn’t going to kick someone out of bed, was he? That would just be too much. But he was fully—and neatly—dressed, and he didn’t seem frustrated or annoyed. When we entered his room I saw that the bed was made, and I relaxed. At least something was going right.

  I sat on the end of the bed, as there was nowhere else in the room to sit. Karish sat beside me, just a little closer than I found comfortable. He started to rub my arm. I knew the touch was meant to reassure me, but I had to jerk away. “Please don’t touch me!” I said, much more sharply than I’d intended. He frowned, and I hastened to explain. “I’m sorry, it’s not you. I’m just a little . . .” What? Heated from the music and the dancing? I wasn’t going to say that to him.

  He drew back a little. “I thought you had plans with Kelly, or I would have invited you here.”

  I almost laughed at that, though I didn’t find it at all funny. He thought I was upset because he hadn’t invited me to his party? Did he really think I was that petty? Of course he wouldn’t invite me to such an affair. He’d have had to spend the whole of it watching me. A guaranteed method of sucking all the fun out of it for him. “I was at the hospital.”

  “How are they?” he asked promptly, meaning Ogawa and Tenneson.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about.” Time to shake off the effects of everything distressing that had happened that day and get down to what really mattered. “Do you remember what you did for Aiden after that bench dancing competition?”

  He shrugged. He never liked talking about it.

  “Do you think you could do the same thing for Ogawa and Tenneson?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know. Heal them.”

  “I can’t heal people, Lee.”

  “You healed Aiden.”

  He took one of my hands, and I had no natural way to avoid it and look like I wasn’t trying to avoid it. If he noticed the slight resistance I put up, he ignored it. He stroked the side of my hand. “I took away some of his pain for a moment, that’s all. I didn’t heal him. He didn’t walk away from that dance.”

  Normally guilt would have made me tense up a little, but Karish’s attention to my hand was making me relax whether I liked it or not. “Maybe not,” I said in an even voice, “But he’s walking now.”

  He looked up swiftly. “Surely it’s too soon for that.”

  “That’s what I thought, but today he met me at the door. He was using a crutch, and he wasn’t too graceful, but he was upright.”

  He thought about that for a moment, then dismissed the idea with a shrug. “So maybe it’s not too soon. What do I know? I’m not a healer.”

  “So maybe you can’t understand the full impact of what you do,” I pointed out. “Maybe you did heal him, at least a little, and you just didn’t realize it.”

  “And maybe you’re letting your concern for Miho and Val cloud your judgment, though the gods may strike me down for such blasphemy.”

  I felt no need to make my resistance subtle then, and I pulled on my hand. Unfortunately, he felt no need to ignore my resistance then, and he held on. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Your evening has been something less than fine,” he said. “You went from visiting Miho and Val in hospital to coming here and being assaulted by one of my guests, and I am truly sorry.”

  “None of it is your responsibility.”

  “All that happens in my home is my responsibility,” he announced grandly. “And I can make you feel better. And there is no one here to see you being less than stoic, so relax.”

  No, no one to see, but everyone knew where we were, and I could just imagine what they were thinking. But I’d known that was how it would be, so there was no point in getting upset about it even if I were so inclined. Which I wasn’t. “Will you come to the hospital?”

  “There’s nothing I can do for them, Lee.”

  “How do you know unless you try?”

  “Why don’t you go and heal them?” he challenged me.

  That was just stupid. “I can’t heal them.”

  “Exactly what I said.”

  How irritating. “I didn’t help Aiden, either.” No, I’d crippled him. “You obviously can do something that other Sources can’t.”

  “A minor thing. I don’t heal damage.”

  “As far as you know,” I reminded him. “Maybe you can do something more if you put your mind to it. And even if you can’t, well, it can’t hurt to try.”

  He sighed. “I’ll take a look at them,” he said reluctantly, “But I really have no idea what I can do. I’m not promising anything.”

  Relief. “Good. Great. That’s all I’m asking.” I rose to my feet, eager to be off. To be honest, I wasn’t really all that confident that Karish could do anything, either. The idea that he could use his skills as a Source to heal was really rather ridiculous. But I couldn’t just stand back and do nothing while Ogawa and Tenneson waited to die.

  “I suppose you want me to go right now,” he said dryly.

  “I know you have guests,” I began in the most apologetic tone I could dig up. But really, his colleagues should be more important than a party, even to him.

  He waved a hand. “All right. Might as well show you you’re wrong immediately.”

  Karish made charming apologies to his guests, claiming he was off on Triple S business and promising to return as soon as he could. There were some protests, and I garnered a few foul looks, but Karish didn’t let himself be dissuaded from going. Once more I was impressed. I didn’t think I would have been able to withstand such heartfelt pleading.

  We went to the hospital. One of the nurses pointed out that it was a little late for visitors, but Karish smiled at him, and that was the end of that. We settled at Ogawa’s bedside and looked at her for a while.

  Then Karish took one of Ogawa’s hands in his. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.

  “What did you do with Aiden?” I asked.

  He had to think about it for a moment. “Pain is like a force,” he said finally. He made a long, fluid gesture with his hand. “I let it flow through me as though it were part of a natural event.”

  “Why can’t you do the same with Ogawa?”

  He studied her again for a few moments. I felt little adjustments within him, and I readied myself, but he didn’t need my Shields. Not yet. “There is no pain there. I don’t think she’s feeling anything.” He cocked his head to one side, considering. “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but maybe a lack of the proper forces is the reason she’s like this.”

  I looked at him with surprise. “People have forces? Just like natural events?”

  “Of course,” he said, as though it were obvious, as though everyone knew it. “Everything that exists has forces. Even rocks. But Miho doesn’t have enough, or she doesn’t have enough of the right sort, and that’s why she’s dying.”

  So I rearranged my thinking. “Could you channel forces into her instead of out?”

  I would have sworn his voice squeaked up at least two octaves when he demanded, “What?”

  “She’s lacking forces. Give her some.” It seemed easy enough to me.

  Karish looked like he was wondering where the lunatic ward was and how quickly he could get me there. “That’s never been done before.”

  That struck me as entirely irrelevant. “So?”

  “I might kill her,” he objected. “I’ll probably kill her.”

  “She’s already dying.”

  His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “You’re not the one who’ll have to live with it if this doesn’t work and it kills her. And Val.”

  “Aye, and I’m also not the one who’ll have to live with it if I sit back and do nothing and let her die,” I said tartly.

  He flinched. “You are such a bitch,” he muttered.

  I couldn’t believe he required even a second thought about it, never mind the third and fourth and fifth he seemed to be indulging in. How could he have the potential to heal Ogawa and hesitate to use it? Yes, it was a risk, and I would be devastated if it went wrong, but Ogawa and Tenneson were dying. How could Karish even consider not making the attempt? “Tell me what I have to do to convince you, and I’ll do it.”

  He laughed bitterly.

  Anger flared. “What the hell is so funny?” I demanded.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Absolutely nothing.” The laughter disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. His inner Shields dropped.

  I erected Shields around him.

  For a long time, nothing happened. He was open to the forces, I could feel that, but he didn’t seem to be doing anything. Perhaps he was just feeling things out. I didn’t bother him with stupid questions, but it was kind of boring, sitting there doing nothing, ready for action.

  It was strange when it finally started, different from anything I’d felt before. I could feel him sort of reaching out, gently touching the forces that moved around him. I could practically feel it on my skin, a not unpleasant sensation. I suppressed a shiver.

  And then he began to pull the forces in. I did shiver then, it felt so odd. I could feel the forces sliding from around us, into him. He was pulling in something even from me. It was just a slight thing at first, like he was pulling out a string from deep within me, but it quickly grew stronger and faster, until it felt like the very air was rushing right out of my lungs. I couldn’t tell whether it felt good or not. Maybe good.

  I Shielded him. There was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t help him directly. I had to let him do whatever he was going to do and hope he didn’t screw up. I hated that.

  I spared some attention for Ogawa. There was no reaction from her. I had no way of knowing whether Karish’s efforts were having any effect on her.

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  So I waited.

  Did Ogawa’s eyelids flicker?

  I looked at her. Her face was slack and as pale as I imagined marble would be, just as it had been when we first came in. But I thought I’d felt something from her.

  My imagination.

  Ogawa took a deep breath.

  Ogawa’s eyes opened.

  Ogawa blinked, her eyes glancing about.

  Karish’s internal defenses snapped back into place, and the forces stopped.

  I dropped my Shields. I looked at Ogawa. She didn’t look quite aware, but there was something in her eyes that told me part of her brain was functioning. The relief that swamped me was so powerful that I was completely unbalanced. That was why I crowed so loudly, threw my arms around my Source, and gave him an exuberant kiss on the cheek. “You did it! You’re magnificent!”

  “Hush!” he said sharply.

  “What’s going on here?” an authoritative voice demanded from somewhere in the insignificant background. Healer Singer glowered down at us, her eyes narrowing. I felt like kissing her, too.

  “Miho’s come around, ma’am,” Karish said respectfully.

  Singer looked at him suspiciously but had more important matters to attend to. She leaned over the bed and gently touched Ogawa’s brow. “Shield Ogawa?” she said softly. “You’re in hospital. You’ve been injured, but it looks like you’re going to be fine. Can you understand me?”

  Ogawa didn’t respond at all. She was looking at Karish. I wondered if she was actually seeing him.

  “Please excuse us,” the healer said, her hands beginning to roam over Ogawa. “I have to examine her now.”

  That was fine, because our work wasn’t finished yet. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, rising to my feet and pulling Karish to his. “Thank you, ma’am.” I practically dragged Karish from the side of the bed.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow, Miho,” he promised.

  “Aye, Ogawa, tomorrow,” I echoed. Moving faster, once more annoying the medical staff.

  Once we were back out in the corridor Karish shook out of my grasp. “What the hell is your hurry?”

  What did he think? “Tenneson’s next.”

  “If they both recover while we’re visiting them, especially one after the other like this, someone’s going to figure it out.”

  “No one’s going to figure it out. It’s impossible, remember? All that’s happened is that Ogawa has recovered, and she will soon drag Tenneson up with her. No one will suspect anything else.” And because it was all so simple and was working so well, I grinned up at him.

  “You’re glowing,” he muttered.

  “You should be, too. You should be proud.” I wondered why he wasn’t. He had just saved a life, after all, and was about to save another. But maybe he was tired. “Come on. It’s time to bring Tenneson back to the land of the living.”

  We did precisely that. I would have never been able to do that with Devereaux.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Karish never struck me as the modest type,” said Ogawa, licking cream off her bottom lip. “I didn’t think he was a braggart, exactly, but I didn’t think he would have any trouble talking about it when he does something amazing.” She reached for another cream roll.

  I savored the sugary confection melting on my tongue and said nothing.

  We were in Ogawa’s suite, lounging on sofas and enjoying the unhealthy pastries I had picked up. After a week of constant eating and sleeping, Ogawa was on her way to full recovery, but her memory had suffered a blow. She remembered the strange forces that had driven her into her deep sleep, and she remembered Karish pulling her back to consciousness, but she couldn’t recall anything in between.

  She had been devastated by the loss of her colleagues, and then had swiftly hidden anything she felt about it. For the first time I heard in another Shield the flat tone Karish had mentioned.

  “I tried to talk to him about it,” she continued as she settled back into the sofa. “I tried to thank him. He was perfectly charming as he brushed me off. He claimed he didn’t know what I was talking about, that he just happened to be there when I woke up, but I know he had more to do with it than that.”

  With my finger I scooped up some cream from my roll and stuck it into my mouth. Sometimes I really resented the way Karish had come to dominate so much of my life. It wasn’t enough that I worked with him. People always had to talk about him. Sometimes it seemed that the only reason anyone spoke to me at all was to talk about Karish. It was starting to bore me. I searched for a subject to switch to.

  “You don’t like him much, do you?” said Ogawa.

  I didn’t want to get into it. “I like him fine.”

  “Then why don’t you ever go to the taverns with him?” Ogawa asked. “Every time I saw him out, he was always alone.”

  I raised a brow at her.

  “All right,” she conceded. “I mean, he wasn’t with you.”

  “Too much togetherness is a bad thing.”

  “You’re missing quite a show,” she told me.

  “Really,” I said flatly, hoping I sounded like I couldn’t care less.

  “Oh, aye. Just picture it. An ordinary night at the tavern. Quiet, slow, a few desultory conversations leaking through the silence. The whores seeking customers, the thugs seeking fights, the brokenhearted seeking oblivion—”

  “My, Ogawa. How poetic.”

  She grinned. “Then he walks in”—I didn’t have to ask who he was—“and the whole place seems to light up. Everyone looks at him, admires him, and he starts greeting everyone as though each were his particular friend. Suddenly everyone is talking louder and laughing harder and straining their brains for the wittiest lines. A dull evening in the local tavern turns into a party, and there’s Karish in the middle of it, smiling that lethal smile that makes your stomach muscles clench.” She sighed.

  I had to smile. Wipe your chin, dear, you’re drooling. “I’m not a tavern sort of person,” I said, which was true enough in its way. “Were you happy when Tenneson Chose you?”

  She grinned again, obviously understanding the sentiment behind the question. “I was thrilled to be Chosen,” she said. “I didn’t much care by who. At that Match there were no Sources who were particularly glorious or particularly vile. I had no opinion of Tenneson when he Chose me. But I got to liking him quickly enough. It wasn’t a snapping together of like minds or anything like that, but I found him comfortable. We’ve had our rough patches and we still have our fights, but for the most part we’ve worked well together. I know I’m fortunate to have someone like him as my Source.”

  Aye, and I envied her. Tenneson did seem to be the perfect Source. Talented, steady, and easy to understand.

  But not nearly so nice to look at.