Visits
23
Emily opened her eyes to an empty chair and stared at it until she remembered where she was and who was supposed to be sitting there. She bit her lip, surprised and disappointed. It hadn’t occurred to her that Hartgrave might leave before he saw for himself that she was all right, not after he’d waited so stubbornly.
Then, shifting in a futile effort to relieve her full-body ache, she saw his mother’s watch on her wrist. It glinted at her like a promise.
Perhaps he’d delayed their first post-battle conversation because he feared what she would say, never mind that she’d told him during the fight it wasn’t his fault. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t forgive almost dying .
And there was, she supposed, a difference between forgiving and wanting to continue the relationship. Could she really trust Hartgrave after this?
His stint with the Organization wasn’t what most bothered her, not after she saw firsthand how easily Kincaid could make something appear to be the opposite of what it was. More troubling was how well Hartgrave hid it from her. How easily he could make something appear to be, if not the opposite of itself, then at least quite different.
She didn’t think he had ever technically lied to her, but what did that matter if she had to analyze every sentence out of his mouth for double meanings and omissions?
She glared at the chair, his stand-in. If only he were here, he could argue on his behalf. She wanted a reason to discount her concerns.
Well. How concerning was it, really? All his equivocations had been artfully designed to avoid a single subject, hadn’t they, and now she knew what it was. She’d just have a serious talk with him about the importance of unadulterated honesty—and of trusting her not to run screaming just because he wasn’t perfect.
There, that was neatly taken care of. Now if only he’d show up so she could get the talking-to over with and move on.
She’d barely had that thought when someone opened the door. She tried to turn over to see who it was, nerve endings singing with something that temporarily overshadowed pain.
“Hey now! Stop—I’m coming around. ”
Not Hartgrave. Bernie, moving slowly but looking so Bernie-ish in a polka-dotted fedora that he had to be more all right than not.
As he sat in the chair, a small parade of medical professionals trundled in, and the next ten minutes were a mix of poking, prodding and bandage-changing.
“Everything’s looking remarkably well, under the circumstances,” a white-haired doctor said, straightening up. “You had two separate fractures to your left olecranon—funny bone,” she said in an apologetic aside. “Not too funny, I know. We took care of that while you were in surgery. The fracture in your right foot isn’t as bad, fortunately, and you’ve got no cracked ribs—I’m sure you’re sore, but it’s just bruising. Best of all, no infection in your wound.
“Of course, had you arrived here any later ...” The doctor trailed off. “I’m so sorry your vacation was ruined, but if you had to be stabbed, a few blocks from St. John’s is just about the ideal place.”
“Uh, right,” Emily said, recognizing a cover story when she heard one.
Bernie cleared his throat. “Do you remember anything about it? Because I believe the police are going to want to interview you about those crazy tourists who picked a fight with us, now that you’re back in the land of the living.”
She opened her mouth, closed it and aimed for an expression of mild anxiety. Feeling positively Hartgravean, she said, “It’s just like it never even happened.”
“Well—you don’t appear to have any head trauma,” the doctor said, looking at her notes. “Sometimes people have no memory of an accident or other traumatic injury. You’re not having trouble remembering other things, are you? No? Then just give it time ...”
The parade moved on. Bernie glanced at her, his smile just as mischievous as usual. “Em my girl, you really did get yourself into it, didn’t you?”
She raised her eyebrows, just about the only parts of her not currently protesting. “‘The valiant never taste of death but once.’”
“Hah! Touché.”
“I’d thought you were dead, actually,” she whispered, struck by the sudden, embarrassing need to cry.
“Nope, just a lousy convincer.”
“Bernie—you were brilliant. You and Willi both. You’re the reason Hartgrave and I are still alive.”
“Pshaw,” he said. But he looked pleased.
“And you’re okay? You were unconscious for so long—”
“Not that long, actually. I was just lying there in a daze.” He tapped his head. “So far, so good.”
That was a relief. “Do you know where my parents are?”
“Getting a bite to eat. I told them to take a break since I’m finally free to roam around.”
She chewed the inside of her lip, trying to think of a suave way to ask the question burning on her tongue. Her tone was more accusatory than she’d intended when she finally blurted, “Where’s Hartgrave?”
“Taking care of a few things.”
Well, that was reasonable. She could think of more than a few things he might have to take care of .
“How are you?” she asked, peering at Bernie. “Not just the head, I mean.”
He grimaced. “Not fabulous, but better than you.”
“I certainly hope so! Hartgrave told me to calm down, I remember that now, but I think I’d gone into shock. I just blacked out.”
“The best thing you could have done, as it happens. Lowered your heart rate, you see.”
“What— oh .”
That explained the mystery of her relocation. Fainting saved her life. It was so absurd, she had to laugh—gingerly.
“I suppose it is a bit funny in hindsight,” Bernie said. “Of course, I was too fuzzy-headed then to realize what was going on—Willi claims I was flat on my back, muttering something about ‘Chaucer’ not being spelled with two h’s.”
“S-stop,” she protested, shaking with repressed giggles. “Hurts.”
He made an apologetic face. “Sorry. My point is, I doubt you’ll get Hartgrave or Willi to appreciate the joke because they had to go through it fully conscious. Imagine what they thought when the anti-magic around you dissipated.”
She wasn’t laughing anymore. She shifted farther under the covers, feeling cold.
“It’s a good thing Willi was fully conscious,” he added. “Sounds like Hartgrave completely lost his head.”
This produced a pang. She wanted quite badly to see him, wanted to hear his voice and hold his hand.
“Did”—her voice quivered—“Willi bring me here? ”
“Hartgrave did. After Willi noticed you were, in fact, still alive.”
She cleared her throat and thought of something that would put her on firmer emotional ground. “You know, I can’t help noticing he bypassed at least half a dozen exceptional Midwestern hospitals. He’s so prejudiced .”
“Pretty sure St. John’s was just top of mind,” Bernie said. “Remember that autodidact in town, the one he warned off? She’s a nursing assistant here.”
Emily winced, said “ah” and decided to make a clean break. “Um ... what day is it?”
“Friday.”
Friday. That rang a distant bell. What was supposed to happen Friday?
“Oh crap crap crap!” She tried to sit up; Bernie pressed her back onto her pillows. “I’m supposed to be on campus today for a meeting! The semester starts Monday!”
“Not for you, it doesn’t.”
How she wished she’d made Hartgrave teach her to curse in German. English didn’t seem strong enough.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Bernie protested. “I told the administration what happened—you know: Sightseeing, got into an argument with some other tourists, and then bam, attacked ...”
“... coincidentally a few blocks from St. John’s Hospital, yeah.”
She was struck by the thought that he could have died, they all could have died, and it was amazing good fortune that they hadn’t. Exactly the sort of happy ending she’d expected from her books, back when her books were all fantasies.
Then she remembered what they’d just been talking about.
Perhaps not exactly the sort of happy ending.
She sighed. “You didn’t get me fired, did you?”
“No, no,” he exclaimed. “Your health insurance is still in force and everything. You’ve just got the semester off.”
Her heart sank. It was for all intents and purposes the same thing. How was she supposed to get Ashburn to offer her another contract—or persuade any other college to hire her—with one semester of teaching and a single to-be-published paper to her name? Had she really managed to torpedo her career as an academic after just five months?
“Don’t worry, Em.” Bernie gave her a smile that for once wasn’t the least bit impish. “You’re alive . Ashburn is so extremely secondary to that. Now,” he said, producing an e-reader, “how about a book? Whatever you want.”
“Nothing with magic in it,” she said. “Or villains. Or adventure.”
He laughed, then winced—she wasn’t the only one with lingering injuries. “Which leaves what, modernist literature?”
“Well ...”
“That’ll make you run screaming back to adventure novels.”
In any case, the harm was already done.
. . . . .
The following days brought a variety of improvements. Her tests, the ones for diseases you could get by having a knife covered in someone else’s blood thrust into your body, all came back negative. She graduated to solid foods, took some tentative steps with her new cane and spent more time awake than asleep.
But Hartgrave was still absent. So was Willi, except that didn’t bother her quite as much.
Something was wrong. The possibilities were endless, considering that the “few things” Hartgrave needed to take care of had to be Organizational.
But when she pumped Bernie for information—were the remaining wizards a problem? was the microchip industry falling apart?—he insisted that Hartgrave had everything under control.
Then he gave her an uncertain look and added, “Do you mind if I ask ...”
She could fill in the rest with no effort at all. Why isn’t Hartgrave visiting you?
But Bernie left it at that. “Never mind,” he said, waving a hand. “None of my business.”
So he thought it was odd, too. And he didn’t know the reason.
Hartgrave avoiding her in fear of what she might say made sense only for a short period, because a long delay made an angry reaction more likely. So that seemed out as an explanation for his behavior.
Maybe he’d assumed she definitely wouldn’t want to see him anymore? But surely her panicked reaction when she thought he was sacrificing himself to Kincaid showed him where he stood.
Perhaps, then, he’d realized he didn’t want her after all. Perhaps he preferred Crawford and went off to grieve her death. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe that, either. Almost expiring in someone’s arms provided clear emotional clues.
But the fact remained that he was nowhere to be found. She almost asked Bernie to tell Hartgrave she wanted to see him—was on the brink at least a dozen times—but it seemed so incredibly middle school that finally, the day before she was due to be discharged, she attacked it sideways by asking about the other conspicuously absent convincer.
The two men were tied together by more than years and their country of origin. Willi might know what the problem was.
“I’d like to see Willi,” she said. “Do you think he might come to visit?”
Bernie hesitated, but then he shrugged and said, “I’ll find out.” He meant it, too—he dematerialized the next moment. One of the advantages of a single-occupancy hospital room.
But when Willi arrived a few minutes later, alone, she immediately discarded her plan of pumping him for information.
Days-old stubble shot out from his face and neck. His clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d slept in them. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept at all. His usual bustling energy was gone, the all-consuming purpose consumed .
“Hi,” she murmured. Why had she assumed he was fine? He’d killed a man. Why hadn’t she asked after him?
“Dr. Daggett,” he said, the words heavy and defeated.
She shook her head. “Emily. ‘Dr. Daggett’ is for students, and no one calls me ‘Daggett’ except—well, anyway, it’s just Emily.”
He stood there, looking at the floor and saying nothing.
“Um,” she said, oh-so-eloquently. “Why don’t you sit?”
He sat.
She rolled her blanket between her fingers, grasping for something to say. For lack of anything better, she decided to cut right to the heart of the matter. “It wasn’t what you expected, was it. With Kincaid, I mean.”
He looked up, though he didn’t quite meet her eyes. “No.”
“What did you expect?”
He was silent for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
“Peace,” he whispered finally. “And—what is the word? ‘Closure’?” He made a soft, bitter sound. “It was false hope. I feel only emptiness.”
“Sometimes that happens after you’ve accomplished a goal you’ve pushed single-mindedly toward.” She caught his hand in hers—it tingled, a faint echo of magic and a sharp reminder of another convincer. She sighed, letting go. “You could make a new goal.”
He shrugged, slipping back into apathy .
She felt helpless. “Willi,” she said, pressing into more dangerous waters, “why did you want to go after Kincaid?”
“You have to ask?” he said, matching her quiet tone.
“Humor me.”
His jaw tightened. “For Anna.”
“Yes, but what did you want?”
“Rache . Revenge,” he translated as an afterthought. He rubbed his eyes with trembling hands. “Do you know, I did not at first care you would be in danger if you helped us. I would not admit it to myself, no, never, but I was almost happy . Yes, let Alexander know what it is like to be struck through the heart!”
Her breath caught in her throat. He looked at her, his eyes bright with tears. “Forgive me. When you were almost killed ... When I saw how much pain you both were in ...”
He trailed off, expression bleak. “This,” he said after a moment, “is what comes of revenge.”
“No—don’t think of it as revenge,” she said, gathering her scattered wits about her. “Revenge is really the desire for restitution, right? And—and that’s impossible. So think of it as justice. You stopped him. You made sure he would never hurt anyone again.”
“For years, I dreamt of killing Kincaid. Dreamt of it—night, day. Now I have done it, and what? I am a killer, nothing more.”
“You know that’s not true. You saved my life.”
“Because of me, you have a hole in your back!”
She shook her head. “That’s hardly your fault. ”
“I was the one who made Alexander pull you into this,” he hissed, all but out of whisper territory now.
“Oh, and I suppose you think I had absolutely nothing to do with it?”
They scowled at each other, his face getting redder by the second. Still—better than colorless lethargy.
“What do you believe would have happened,” she said, “if we hadn’t gone after the Organization? All of us?”
“You would be fine,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I am fine! I’m alive! I’d be great if you weren’t such a”—she struggled to remember what Hartgrave had called him—“such an Anfallspinsel!”
He paused, mouth open, making a strange gurgling sound.
“Are you all right?” She leaned toward him, trying to remember what a stroke looked like.
“Anfallspinsel?” He choked the word out. “You think I am a, a ‘seizure paintbrush’?”
“But ... Hartgrave—in your restaurant ...”
He laughed so hard it took him a moment to answer. “Einfaltspinsel . Nincompoop.”
“Anfallspinsel , Einfaltspinsel ... Sounds the same to me,” she said, sure her cheeks were now as red as his.
He shrugged, getting ahold of himself. “Revenge, justice.”
“No, those aren’t the same. And killing a man to stop him from taking someone else’s life isn’t murder.”
“You are the someone. Of course you would say that.”
“And of course you feel terrible,” she said, throwing up her arms. “You’re a decent human being—you are —and decent human beings abhor death. I’m sorry, Willi,” she added. “None of what happened to you is fair. You deserve the peace you wanted.”
He considered her. “I am tiring you. You must rest.”
“You’re just looking for an excuse to get away so you don’t have to admit I’m right.”
He smiled. It was a miracle.
“I will visit you again, Emily.” He took her hand in both of his as he stood, with no ill effects. “I am sorry I did not come until you asked for me.”
“Willi,” she said, hanging on to keep him from dematerializing. “Wait—I have to know: Why is Hartgrave avoiding me?”
“Ah.” His smile faded. He paused. “For the same reason I did, I am thinking.”
What? Oh, no, no, no . She’d forced her way inside Hartgrave’s room. She’d worked hard to discover his secrets. She’d insisted on a role in the adventure. With the exception of withholding the whole truth, what part of this did he think was his doing?
Willi avoided her eyes again. “Should I tell him he is an Einfaltspinsel?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “And that he’s hurting me.”
“I will,” he said and shimmered away to nothing.