she was mocking him. He was sitting on the counter, a cup of soup in his hands and a swath of gauze taped across his forehead, pushing his bangs up in a jagged line. He looked like he was recovering from his first bar fight.
I didn’t care; I was just glad he was awake. “Don’t make me come over there.”
“Gordan wouldn’t let you.”
“He’s right for once; I wouldn’t.” She smiled, showing the points of her teeth. “And you should be glad this hurts. The only way it wouldn’t hurt is if you were already dead.”
“Just be careful,” I said, hunching my shoulders. I still suspected her; I had no logical reason not to, save for the fact that I couldn’t figure out why she’d have killed her own best friend.
“I am,” she said. She put down the tweezers, selecting a strip of gauze. Her fingers were gentle as she bandaged my cheek, avoiding the spots where the skin was torn. For all her hostility, she knew what she was doing. “You’ll heal, but I don’t recommend sliding down any more driveways on your face.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, dryly.
“Good. This was fun and all, but I don’t want to do it again.” She started to pack the kit with neat, rapid motions, tucking away gauze, ointment, and those awful sharp-edged tweezers. “Get some coffee or something. You look like the dead.”
“The soup’s good,” Quentin said, hefting his mug.
“You’re that worried about my welfare all of a sudden?” I looked at Gordan.
“Stuff it,” she said, not unkindly. “I just don’t want you upsetting Jan even more.”
“Right,” I said, standing and crossing to the coffeemaker. The pot was half- full; good. I didn’t want to bother brewing more. The bandages on my hands were light enough that I could handle it easily—I hadn’t lost any manual dexterity, and that was even better.
We were alone in the cafeteria, and the doors were locked with a warding charm of Jan’s design. I’d tried to open the door once, just out of curiosity, and found myself pushed gently but firmly back into the room. The seal was good. After dropping us off with Gordan, Jan and Terrie had disappeared to find Elliot and take care of the mess blocking the front gate.
“Toby?”
“Yeah?” The coffee was hot enough to be worth drinking. I took a long swallow and topped the cup off again. I was sure to need the caffeine.
“What are they going to do with the car?”
“Small questions, small minds,” Gordan muttered.
Ignoring her, I said, “Well, either they’re going to put up a really big illusion while they search for a giant can opener—”
“Yeah, right,” Quentin said, wrinkling his nose. Gordan snorted.
I settled next to him. “Like I said, either it’s giant can opener time, or they’ve got themselves a forklift.” My poor car.
“Will they call the cops?”
Gordan snorted again as I said, “Jan’s not going to call the police when she has a basement full of bodies.” That was good, since none of us wanted to be arrested for murder or carted off for dissection by the nice government men. That’s the kind of hospitality I can skip.
“Oh.” Quentin considered this. “What about our stuff?”
“Fireballs aren’t generally polite enough to leave everyone’s spare jeans intact.”
He sighed. “Great.”
“I know this is hard for you,” I said, fighting to keep from smiling, “but human teenagers wear the same clothes two days in a row all the time and it hasn’t killed any of them yet.” Quentin was doing the impossible: he was cheering me up. Well, him and the coffee.
Quentin wadded up his napkin and threw it at me. “Jerk.”
“Completely,” I said. “Besides. I spoke to Sylvester, and he said he was going to send someone to help.” And to take Quentin back to Shadowed Hills, although that could wait until he wasn’t still riding the adrenaline high of his very first auto accident. “So whoever it is, they’ll have a car, and they can get you some fresh clothes.”
“That won’t make trouble with Duchess Riordan?”
“Kid, at this point, she can cope.”
Gordan glared, opening her mouth. Whatever she was going to say was lost as the wards dissolved and the door swung open, letting Jan, Elliot, and Terrie into the room. Jan’s shoulders were squared and her chin was up; she looked like every other hero in Faerie, getting ready to strap on her shining armor and ride off to fight the dragon. That might be a problem, because the world has changed, and