"Help me up," Oliver finally whispered. His voice sounded faint and tattered. Claire grabbed his arm and helped him climb slowly, painfully up; he moved as if he were a thousand years old, and felt every year of it. One of the other vampires silently provided a chair, and Claire helped him into it.
Oliver braced his elbows on his thighs and hid his pale face in his hands. When she started to speak, he said, softly, "Leave me."
It didn't seem a good idea to argue. Claire backed off and returned to where Myrnin was, on the couch.
He blinked, still staring at the ceiling. He folded his hands slowly across his stomach, but didn't otherwise move.
"Myrnin?"
"Present," he said, from what seemed like a very great distance away. He chuckled very softly, then winced. "Hurts when I laugh."
"Yeah, um--I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" A very slight frown worked its way between Myrnin's eyebrows, made a slow V, and then went on its way. "Ah. Staked me."
"I . . . uh . . . yeah." She knew what Oliver's reaction would have been, if she'd done that kind of thing to him, and the outcome wouldn't have been pretty. She wasn't sure what Myrnin might do. Just to be sure, she stayed out of easy grabbing distance.
Myrnin simply closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. He looked old now, exhausted, like Oliver. "I'm sure it was for the best," he said. "Perhaps you should have left the wood in place. Better for everyone, in the end. I would have just--faded away. It's not very painful, not comparatively."
"No!" She took a step closer, then another. He just looked so--defeated. "Myrnin, don't. We need you."
He didn't open his eyes, but there was a tiny, tired smile curving his lips. "I'm sure you think you do, but you have what you need now. I found the cure for you, Claire. Bishop's blood. It's time to let me go. It's too late for me to get better." "I don't believe that."
This time, his great dark eyes opened and studied her with cool intensity. "I see you don't," he said. "Whether or not that assumption is reasonable, that's another question entirely. Where is she?"
He was asking about Amelie. Claire glanced at Oliver, still hunched over, clearly in pain. No help. She bent closer to Myrnin. No way she wouldn't be overheard by the other vampires, though, she knew that. "She's--I don't know. We got separated.
The last I saw, she and Bishop were fighting it out."
Myrnin sat up. It wasn't the kind of smooth, controlled motion vampires usually had, as though they'd been practicing it for three or four human lifetimes; he had to pull himself up, slowly and painfully, and it hurt Claire to watch. She put her hand against his shoulder blade to brace him. His skin still felt marblecold, but not dead. It was hard to figure out what the difference was--maybe it was the muscles, underneath, tensed and alive again.
"We have to find her," he said. "Bishop will stop at nothing to get her, if he hasn't already. Once you were safely away, she'd have retreated. Amelie is a guerrilla fighter. It's not like her to fight in the open, not against her father."
"We're not going anywhere," Oliver said, without taking his head out of his hands. "And neither are you, Myrnin."
"You owe her your fealty."
"I owe nothing to the dead," Oliver said. "And until I see proof of her survival, I will not sacrifice my life, or anyone else's, in a futile attempt at rescue."
Myrnin's face twisted in contempt. "You haven't changed," he said.
"Neither have you, fool," Oliver murmured. "Now shut up. My head aches."
Eve was pulling shots behind the counter, wearing a formal black apron that went below her knees. Claire slid wearily onto a barstool on the other side. "Wow," she said. "Flashback to the good times, huh?"
Eve made a sour face as she thumped a mocha down in front of her friend.
Yeah, don't remind me," she said. "Although I have to say, I missed the Monster."
"The Monster?"
Eve patted the giant, shiny espresso machine beside her affectionately. "Monster, meet Claire. Claire, meet the Monster. He's a sweetie, really, but you have to know his moods."
Claire reached out and patted the machine, too. "Nice to meet you, Monster."
"Hey." Eve caught her wrist when she tried to pull back. "Bruises? What gives?"
Amelie's grip on her really had raised a crop of faint blue smudges on her upper arm, like a primitive tattoo. "Don't freak. I don't have any bite marks or anything."