to immediately search out where she’d put it. She had, in point of fact, set it beneath clothes at the bottom of her closet, but as soon as she had a moment alone, she would find a much better hiding place for it.
She put her hands on either side of his face and said, “Let me work on you. Right now.”
His gaze came back to her, but his eyes were cloudy, unfocused. After a few moments, he nodded and his face began to clear—as though he realized how oddly he was behaving. “Yes, please,” he whispered.
She settled him back onto the bed and threw the covers off him entirely, so she could see all of his body. The bruises were mostly gone, the broken bones were nearly mended, but there was still something fragile about him.
As she’d trained herself to do under Master Tan’s tutelage, she centered her thoughts and let her mind shift. It was like teaching your eyes to go out of focus until something farther away clarified. After a moment, the ordinary world became less crisp and she began to see copper-colored lines of energy surrounding Shinobu’s body.
When she’d first trained with Master Tan, he’d been startled by the ease with which Quin achieved this concentration. It was only later, when she’d regained all of her memories, that she grasped how much her Seeker mental training had prepared her to enter this state of heightened observation.
Shinobu’s energy flowed in patterns about his body, but the bright lines were broken where there had been trauma. Dark patches hovered above his wounds, particularly the whipsword injury on his right side. And there were dozens of fainter blotches surrounding his head. Shinobu had also added electricity to the equation by wearing the focal.
Quin shut out all other thoughts, calmed her breathing, and focused more deeply. In a moment she could see her own energy field, bright copper streams running down her arms. She spread her fingers wide, held her hands a few inches above Shinobu’s chest, and let the energy flow down from her own arms, over her fingers, spilling off her body and onto Shinobu like a river of lightning.
Methodically she moved her hands across all of the muddy patches above his injuries, breaking them up, washing them away. At last she reached his head, where the copper lines formed whirlpools around a constellation of dark blotches. Slowly these broke up, and the bright streams about his face and head became symmetrical and ran without obstruction.
Shinobu let out a long sigh of relief, and Quin watched him visibly relax. She allowed her vision to settle back into its normal state, and the patterns of energy faded from her view. When he opened his eyes to look up at her, she let her hands fall to the bed.
“Better?” she asked him quietly.
“Better,” he whispered back. “You’re very good to me.”
She smiled. The fragility she’d seen in him was gone, at least for a while. He sat up on the bed next to her, leaned in, and kissed her softly. Then his eyes darted around the room before coming back to hers.
“Did you really hide the focal?” he asked.
She didn’t like that he was asking about it again; the metal helmet had certainly gotten under his skin. However, he appeared to be resigning himself to the idea that he couldn’t have it.
“I did,” she answered. And I will hide it better.
He nodded. “Do you mind if we get out of this room? I know I shouldn’t wear it. But I need to do something to push it out of my mind. I’d like to fight.”
Quin laughed. He’d been asking her about a practice fight for days. Maybe now was the time. As long as they were cautious, it would be good for him to use his muscles.
“I’ve been up most of the night looking at the journal,” she told him. “So there’s a very, very small chance you might be able to beat me.”
He bumped his shoulder into hers and kissed her again. She was happy to see his mood improving so quickly.
“Should I tie one hand behind my back to help you out?” he asked her. “Or put on a blindfold? Or do you need more help than that?”
“Get yourself out of my bed!” she said.
She pushed him away playfully, then went to the desk against the opposite wall.
“I brought you a better gift from your mother than the focal,” she told him.