Mona Lisa Eclipsing

TWENTY-FIVE

“THERE’S QUITE A crowd of reporters,” Hannah said worriedly as we came in sight of the hospital. We had parked the van three blocks down and walked the remaining distance, in case we needed to make a quick, anonymous getaway.

“I’m picking up three Monère guards posted around the hospital,” I said. The local territory Queen’s men.

“Me, too,” Amber confirmed. His golden eyes scanned the area, lingering with unease on the crowd of reporters and cameramen restlessly gathered thirty feet away from the front entrance in an area that had been sectioned off with yellow tape by the police, who were also quite visibly present. I saw two squad cars, counted three police officers outside, and glimpsed a dark uniform inside the glass entrance doors.

“Amber, can you stay out here and stand guard, in case our arrival spooks Jarvis into flying out another window?” I asked, looking up at our most conspicuous member. “I know the Queen Mother informed the local Queen not to touch Jarvis, but your presence out here might keep her men from overreacting if he tries to bust out unexpectedly.”

Amber agreed with obvious relief. He glanced up at the hospital, looking puzzled. “That’s odd. I’m not sensing Jarvis at all.”

“Neither am I,” I said, “but it’s a stone building. If the walls inside the hospital are built with cinder blocks like the hospital I used to work in, it’ll mask most, if not all, of his presence.”

Mr. McManus was seated in the waiting area and was easy to pick out. He looked exactly like what he was: a high-priced attorney, wearing a three-piece suit and spit-polish black shoes. Beneath the bushiest eyebrows I’d ever seen, sharp intelligence gleamed out from a pair of deep-set eyes. Wavy russet hair, sprinkled with distinguished gray, framed a craggy, strong-boned face. An expensive-looking briefcase sat by his feet, and the fingers of his right hand drummed impatiently as he scanned the faces of everyone entering. His gaze touched on us briefly, then moved on.

His sharp eyes swung back, refocusing on me as I made my way over to him.

“Mr. McManus, I presume?” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Lisa Hamilton. Thank you for meeting me here.”

“You’re much younger than I expected,” he said, frowning as he shook my hand.

“And you sound even better in person than you do over the phone,” I returned. I had been expecting his voice to be less vibrant somehow, but it was even richer and more resonant in person, almost professional quality like what you heard announcing commercials.

“How old are you?” McManus demanded, his bushy brows scrunching together like caterpillars wriggling toward each other.

“Twenty-one. Don’t worry, I’m legal.” In that one sense of the word, at least. “Let me introduce my friends to you.”

Everyone exchanged courteous nods.

“Here—before I forget,” I said, handing him the thousand-dollar retainer fee. The cash was wrapped in a sheet of hotel stationery with the top letterhead ripped off, leaving just a blank sheet. An envelope would have been nicer, but all of them had been imprinted with the hotel’s name and address.

McManus counted the money and slipped it inside his suit pocket. He glanced at me, waiting expectantly. When nothing more was forthcoming, he said, “One pointer, Ms. Hamilton. Always ask for a receipt in any cash transactions.”

A good point, though it made me feel as young as he said I looked. Business transactions were not my forte. “Can I have a receipt?” I asked.

McManus took out a business card and printed out the amount he had received on the back. Dating and signing it, he handed it to me, completing our transaction.

I pocketed the business card/receipt. “So are we your clients now?”

His thick brows twitched. “I thought you were engaging my services to represent Jarvis Condorizi solely.”

“For the most part. But if I and my friends get into trouble upstairs, I trust you’ll come to our aid as well.”

“Of course. But that will increase my time, and your expense.”

“Understood.” We walked to the bank of elevators, bypassing the visitor’s desk.

“You know where he is?” McManus asked when I pushed the “up” elevator button.

“The burn center, most likely.” The elevator doors opened, and I entered, holding the door while the rest trooped inside.

“Don’t you need a visitor’s pass?” McManus asked.

“I thought it would be better just to go straight up. Your presence should be enough to get us in.”

Clearly, McManus didn’t like this, but he didn’t comment. Scanning the directory posted on the wall, I pushed the button for the fourth floor.

“Not all of you will be able to see him,” McManus said as the doors closed and we started going up.

“Most of them will wait outside the burn unit. It’ll just be Hannah and me, and you, of course, going in to see Jarvis.”

Dontaine, Nolan, and Dante turned to gaze at me. Only Quentin seemed unconcerned.

“He is a wounded male,” said Dontaine too quietly for McManus to hear.

“Which is why it would be best if only Hannah and I went in,” I answered. “The presence of other males will only agitate him.”

“And a Queen’s presence will not?” Dante asked with acerbic bite.

“Consider me both bait and protection for Hannah,” I murmured. “Don’t worry, Nolan. I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt Hannah.”

“It is both of your safety I am concerned about,” Nolan said.

“Mona Lisa is right,” Hannah said quietly. “This way will be the least threatening to Jarvis, and therefore the safest for us.”

“Excuse me, did you say something?” McManus asked, glancing at me. He had obviously seen my lips moving.

“No, just talking to myself,” I answered blithely.

That didn’t appear to lend him any more confidence in me, but at this point I didn’t care as the lift came to a gentle halt and the doors opened to the fourth floor.

We left the men waiting unhappily in the sitting area and made our way to the Trauma and Burn Center. Visiting hours were posted on the glass doors, from nine a.m. to nine p.m. It was a few minutes past nine. Perfect timing, though our number of visitors was not as ideal. Most hospitals allowed only two visitors in at a time, not three, and only relatives were permitted into the intensive care units.

Then we were in the burn unit and the smell of it hit my sensitive nose—burnt flesh beneath the astringent, industrial smell all hospitals had. I caught the feel of Monère presence, but that, too, was faint, much fainter than it should have been, but I would have known, even had I not felt him, where Jarvis was. There were two policemen posted outside the room directly across from the nurses’ station, with a crowd of other bodies inside and outside of the room: nurses in their flowered-top scrubs and young-looking doctors in white coats and dark blue scrubs. Hospital interns and residents, I realized with a start. Must be a teaching hospital. Two FBI types stood outside the room next to two seated police officers. There was almost an equal number of people inside his room gathered around the bed, all of them gloved and gowned, blocking my view of the occupant.

McManus stopped in front of the nurses’ station, waiting patiently for one of the busy nurses. But what I felt made me too uneasy to wait.

“I can’t discern his heartbeat,” I said to Hannah. Everything was beating human fast, and that should not be; Jarvis’s heart should have been half the normal rate, but everything I heard was going at least sixty to eighty beats a minute. The only reason for a Monère’s heart to beat that fast was extreme stress or severe injury. And it wasn’t because he had sensed us: none of the heartbeats had sped up. That, coupled with the weak presence I felt emanating from him, had me severely worried.

“He shouldn’t be this weak,” I said softly to Hannah.

“No, milady, he shouldn’t,” Hannah agreed.

“We can’t wait. Follow me.”

I dashed past the guards, moving at full, blurring Monère speed, and entered the room, dodging around bodies until I saw him. And then I stopped, frozen solid with shock and dismay.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

My words, the feel of my presence, drew Jarvis’s eyes directly to me, past all the people gathered around his bed.

There was a sudden exclamation as people caught sight of me and Hannah. Hey, who are you? You can’t come in here without a gown! How did you people get inside the room? But I had eyes and ears for only one person—Jarvis.

Ash-blond hair curled in loose waves around the lower strands singed. He had the face of an angel, an archangel, with strong, noble features and vivid blue eyes. No wonder people were calling him an angel.

Those blue eyes grew huge and wide, the only part of him that moved. The rest of him was still.

He lay on his stomach, facing the far end of the room where Hannah and I stood. His face was the only visible part of him that was not burned. A tented-sheet canopy had been erected over him and I caught a glimpse of his neck and upper arms from where I stood: they were completely scorched, ugly charred burns mixed with raw, blistered flesh, everything smeared liberally with a gooey paste.

An older doctor sitting near the bed turned around to look at me, unblocking some of my view so I could see the unblemished back of Jarvis’s lower thighs and calves emerging from the other end of the tented canopy. As I watched, the IV catheter the doctor had just inserted into the back of Jarvis’s knee was slowly pushed back out, the white anchoring tape no match for the strong rejection of Jarvis’s body to the inserted foreign object.

The doctor muttered a foul curse and glared at Hannah and me, as if we were to blame for what must have been the one-hundredth failed attempt to put an intravenous line into him.

“Please,” Jarvis said, looking at me with clear panic in his eyes. He had been so utterly still, not even breathing, so that it was like watching a rock suddenly come alive as he levered himself up off the bed, disrupting the canopy above him.

Amidst the sudden uproar of voices, Jarvis slid down to kneel in front of me, his horribly burned arms spread out wide, out to his side. “Please, milady, she’s innocent. She doesn’t know anything.”

Only then did I realize the protective nature of his gesture.

The she he referred to was the girl Jarvis had leaped out of bed, stark naked, to shield: the young teenager sitting on the other side of the bed, Kelly Rawlings, the runaway. Both of her hands were swathed in white bandages up to the forearm. Had Jarvis been at full strength, I would not have felt her much weaker presence—a Mixed Blood, as I had suspected. But with his energy signature almost as weak as hers, it was easy to discern.

Jarvis thought I was here to kill him and the girl.

“I’m here to help you,” I told him, “not to harm either of you.”

He stayed kneeling, clearly not trusting my words, begging me with his eyes to spare the girl’s life. For his own life, not one word or plea.

“Jarvis, what are you doing?” the girl exclaimed. “Get back in bed. You’ll infect your wounds!”

“Stretch out your senses, Jarvis, and see for yourself that I am like her,” I told him.

He did and his eyes widened even more in confusion. “But . . . you are a Queen.”

“And also a Mixed Blood. I give my word, I am here only to help.”

“What is the meaning of this and who are you two?” demanded one of the suit-wearing men. There were two of them inside the room. Well, actually four of them now; the two others posted outside had come into the room as well.

“They are Jarvis Condorizi’s friends,” McManus said, pushing his way in past the interns, still tying up his gown. “And I am his attorney. Who are you?”

“FBI,” the man snapped, flipping out his badge. “Special agent in charge, Richard Stanton. I wasn’t aware he had asked for a lawyer.”

“His friend here, Lisa Hamilton,” he gestured to me, “obtained my services on his behalf.”

I waved at Special Agent Stanton.

Stanton’s brows, less bushier than McManus’s, lowered in glowering disapproval. “And who the hell, Ms. Hamilton, are you?”

“I am a Monère Queen. A representative for our people.” My cool and calm statement drew a shocked breath from Jarvis.

“Are you hurt?” Kelly asked, coming over to Jarvis.

“No, I’m fine, Kelly.” He kept his arms spread, blocking her attempt to come around in front of him. “Sit down and stay behind me.”

At his urging, she settled back into her seat, her brown eyes fixed intently on me, her gaze none too friendly.

“What’s a Monère Queen?” Stanton demanded.

“Um—perhaps a sheet for his modesty,” I said, waving a hand at Jarvis.

Kelly pulled a sheet off the bed and draped it over Jarvis’s lap from behind.

“A Queen is what they call a lady of light,” I explained. “Someone who is able to draw down the rays of the moon and share its energy with her people.”

“And who the hell are your people?” asked Stanton.

“My friend, Hannah, here. And people like Jarvis,” I answered. “Kelly, too, if she wishes.”

Jarvis trembled almost violently at my words. I wasn’t sure if it was dismay from what I was revealing to the humans here or from the agonizing pain from the burns and the position he still maintained, kneeling on the floor.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Stanton growled. “Who are the Monère? I’ve never heard of them.”

“We are the children of the moon,” I answered. “Its descendents.”

Jarvis made a horrible, panicked sound deep in his chest. “Please, milady. They may be able to hear you outside. You will bring them all down upon us.”

“There’s nothing to fear, Jarvis. I’m here at the request and approval of the High Court. I’ve been appointed an ambassador, of sorts, to represent our people. We’re taking advantage of the opportunity you provided to go public.”

The shock of my declaration, on top of his pain, proved too much for Jarvis. He swayed, looking faint, and I moved quickly, lightly grasping his face to keep him from falling.

With that contact, the moles in the palms of my hands flared to life and power was pulled from deep within me, drawn by Jarvis’s pain. It flowed out of me and spread into him. Carefully, I stepped back and released him.

“You took away my pain,” Jarvis said, looking at me with awe, trembling but no longer swaying unsteadily.

“Just the pain,” I told him, “and only for a little while. Will you allow Hannah to lay hands on you? She is a healer.”

My claim set off the disgruntled physician who had been working on Jarvis when we had come in. “A healer? What can she do that we can’t? I can’t even get a blasted IV to stay inside him.”

“His body will naturally expel any foreign object,” Hannah explained, her gentleness and compassion obvious to everyone in the room. Turning back to Jarvis, she asked, “Will you allow me to help you?”

Jarvis nodded his silent assent.

Hannah came to stand in front of him and I moved back. Jarvis remained kneeling on the floor.

Everyone cried out in protest as, without ceremony, Hannah laid her ungloved hands gently on Jarvis’s burnt shoulders and pushed down through the gel until her hands came in contact with his skin.

“Quiet!” I commanded, glaring at them. “None of you can help him, only she can. Let her work!”

“She’ll infect his burn wounds!” sputtered the older doctor, obviously the senior physician in the room.

“We do not get infections,” I said as I felt the gentle flare of Hannah’s power. “Our body naturally heals our injury. He should have been half healed by now.”

Agent Stanton snorted. “Then why hasn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” I said, watching Hannah.

Agent Stanton and the doctor, whose name tag read Dr. T. Hubert, came around the bed to stand next to me, and saw most clearly what was happening as Hannah swept her hands down Jarvis’s arms. Wherever her hands touched, the wounds healed into perfect unblemished skin, but only for a second. As soon as her hands moved on, the healed skin quickly melted back into angry, raw wounds.

“Dear lord!” gasped Dr. Hubert. At his words and expression, the rest of the onlookers crowded closer for a better view.

“Everyone stay where you are,” Agent Stanton ordered sharply. “Agents Dutton and Maloney—over here.”

The two agents made their way over to Stanton, McManus following behind them.

“I’m his attorney,” McManus said, returning Stanton’s glare. His jaw dropped, however, when he caught sight of what Hannah was doing to Jarvis’s hands—the all too brief, temporary healing.

Hannah lifted her hands to Jarvis’s unburned chest, hovered a moment over his heart, then moved her fingers down his abdomen.

“Is it the gel smeared over his skin, Hannah?” I asked. “Is it interfering with the healing?”

Pain and sadness darkened her compassionate eyes as she drew her hands away. “No, milady,” Hannah said. “He’s too injured for me to heal . . . too weak.”

“Weak? How can he be too weak?” I asked. “He was powerful enough to be a threat to his Queen. Powerful enough to do a partial shift of just his arms.”

“What energy he had, he used in their escape from the fire. He does not have any reserves left to heal himself. Mona Lisa . . . he’s dying.”

Kelly made a choked sound.

“I didn’t know we could die from burn wounds,” I said, astonished. Other than sun poisoning, I thought we could be killed only by having our heads severed or our hearts removed. Jarvis’s head and heart were obviously intact.

“Neither did I. His heart is severely damaged—much like Amber’s was when you first met him, almost dying from the punishment his Queen inflicted on him.”

Hannah was talking about sunlight. Amber’s former Queen had roasted Amber in bright sunlight. Was heat the common element? Had the burning heat of fire done to Jarvis what several hours of direct sunlight had done to Amber?

“There’s nothing you can do?” I asked.

“No, I’m sorry, milady. It’s beyond my ability—his heart and other organs are starting to shut down. He will start to fade soon. It’s been too many years since he has Basked and it has weakened him.”

“You and your family didn’t appear weak, and you were rogues for twenty years. He’s only been without a Queen’s light for three years.”

“We did weaken, but none of us were ever injured as severely as Jarvis. If we were, we might not have recovered, even with my healing talent.”

“Who the hell are you people?” Agent Stanton said in a blustery demand.

“Quiet, please,” I said. “I need to think.”

The FBI agent bristled like a rooster. “I demand an explanation.”

“I’ll be happy to give you one,” I said sharply, “but I’d like to see first if there’s a way to save this man—if that’s all right with you? Or do you not care if he lives or dies?”

“Your healer just said she can’t save him,” Dr. Hubert said, subdued, all his anger gone, eyeing us with curiosity and wariness now.

“Please, milady Queen,” said Jarvis. “I don’t mind dying. But Kelly—she’s innocent. I’ve told her nothing of us. Please, I beg you to keep her safe from our people.” Placing his injured hands on the floor with a squishy sound, he abased himself before me.

Kelly cried out and reached for him, but there was no safe place to put her hand. His back and shoulders were as raw and damaged as his poor arms and hands, and his head was too far away, bowed down at my feet.

I hadn’t been flustered before—excited and nervous, yes, but not flustered like I was now.

People gasped. I felt my face flushing. “Um, Jarvis?”

“Yes, milady Queen.”

“You have my word. Kelly will not be harmed. Now, please get up off the floor.”

Jarvis slowly lifted up and rose to his feet. The relief I had started to feel evaporated as the sheet across his lap fell to the floor, leaving him naked in front of me.

He was a couple of inches taller than me, I noted, and fairly big. Maybe I should have been wary or frightened of him, a Monère warrior who was wounded, and therefore at his most dangerous. My men would certainly have had a conniption fit. But looking into those oddly defenseless, guileless blue eyes, it wasn’t fear I felt, just more embarrassment—on his behalf and mine.

Carefully keeping my eyes fixed on Jarvis’s face and chest, I bent and retrieved the fallen sheet, draping it low around him like a towel, keeping it below the burns ending just above his buttocks.

Kelly grasped the sheet behind him, and I left it to the girl to preserve her companion’s modesty, more for our sakes than his—like most Monère he didn’t seem to mind being naked. “Jarvis, can you lie back down on the bed, or would you prefer to sit in a chair?”

“A chair, please,” said Jarvis.

Kelly brought her chair forward, and Jarvis eased himself down onto it.

Laying my hand on his chest, I drew away the additional pain the movement had caused, and he sighed a breath of relief. “Thank you, milady Queen.”

“You can call me Mona Lisa, or just milady.”

He nodded, ducking his head in a shy gesture that I thought hugely ironic. Flashing a roomful of people didn’t faze him the slightest, but being allowed to address me by name made him shy. It made me want to crush the neck of the idiot Queen who had turned him rogue. He was a gallant blend of meekness, courage, and odd innocence. He would never be a threat to her or any other woman. His friend Kelly, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter for all that he sought to protect her. Though she was young, she had a toughness in her eyes that he lacked. I wondered if that was their relationship: he protected her physically, but she watched over him in all other ways.

I closed my eyes a moment to shut out all the distraction. I had a choice here. I could let Jarvis die. His death would not hurt our cause; it might even help it, cementing his heroism in the public eye. Or I could try to save him, and in doing so, show more than I had intended this first round and risk alienating people, frightening humans, and outraging Monère.

But I had no choice, really. I could not stand by and let this valiant rogue die when I had the means and ability to save him. I could only try to do it in the least shocking way possible. Grabbing him and running was out of the question; the bright rays of the morning sun outside would finish Jarvis off. It would have to be here, in front of witnesses.

I turned to Agent Stanton. He was the real authority I had to deal with here. “I can save him and heal him,” I told Stanton, “and everyone can stay and watch, but I will need the help of one of my men. He’ll be unarmed and won’t make any trouble as long as your men don’t make any threatening moves like drawing their guns.”

“Our guns will stay in their holsters,” Stanton said, “as long as your guy doesn’t make any aggressive moves in turn.”

“He won’t. I would appreciate it if you can inform the policemen stationed outside.”

Stanton nodded to the agent next to him, and the man began winding his way through the crowd.

“Dr. Hubert,” Stanton said, clearly irritated. “Can you clear out some of your people? It’s too crowded in here.”

The doctor kicked out two nurses and three young interns. That still left almost a dozen people in the room.

“Dontaine,” I said in a normal tone of voice. “I need you.”

A scarce moment later, I felt Dontaine’s presence outside, heard him say politely, “Excuse me, please.”

Dontaine entered the room in full, stunning glory. Everyone looked dazzled, no doubt expecting some big bruiser to enter, not someone who looked like a living, breathing Adonis. Dontaine didn’t need a sword; he simply smote them all with a blinding smile. A few in the room embarrassingly came close to swooning, and not just the women, I noted.

“Tone it down a little, Dontaine, will you?” I said with a dry smile.

The wattage dimmed. “Yes, milady.”

He walked straight to me, people parting before him like the waters of the Red Sea. The rogue, however, knew him for the threat he was.

“Easy, Jarvis,” I said. “My word that Dontaine will not harm you or the girl. I need him to help me bring out my light to share with you.”

By the sudden hot, sensual change in Dontaine’s expression, I knew he had mistaken what I intended. No, I tried to convey in the severe look I shot him, we’re not having sex!

“What are you talking about?” Agent Stanton asked. “Bring out what light?”

“Jarvis has not bathed in a Queen’s light for six years; that’s why his energy is nearly depleted. I need Dontaine’s help to ignite my light so I can share it with Jarvis, similar to what we do when we Bask, pulling down the moon’s light.”

“And how will this guy help you do that?” Agent Stanton asked, eyes narrowing.

“By kissing me. Nothing else,” I said to Dontaine, making things clear. “Just kissing.”

Dontaine’s emerald bright eyes sparkled with a delight that was out of proportion to what I proposed, until I realized why he seemed so pleased. Because I had called him instead of Dante.

“And how will kissing you help bring out this light you’re talking about?” Agent Stanton asked.

“We glow only in pleasure,” I said, lifting my face to Dontaine. As Dontaine lowered his head to me, all my awareness of the watching audience, the nervous rogue, the skeptical FBI agent . . . all of it suddenly dimmed as Dontaine’s mouth lowered until he was just a few inches away from my lips.

“Just a kiss?” Dontaine murmured. “Quite a challenge.”

“I have full faith in you.” I watched Dontaine’s emerald eyes darken to forest green, watched his eyes dilate, the expanding black iris chasing the green color out to the very rim.

Those firm, lovely lips lowered to airbrush their way across my check, over my jaw, not touching, just the light, stimulating buzz of his presence against mine, and then those lips landed light as a butterfly on my neck, grazing the exact spot where Halcyon had sunk his teeth into me. It had long healed. No trace remained of my skin ever having been pierced there. But it was still incredibly sensitive.

I shivered, bit back a moan as I felt Dontaine’s tongue with sudden, electrifying sensation. His teeth grazed skillfully, precisely, there against that invisible bite wound for an eye-rolling, heart-pounding moment before moving down the bend of my neck, torturous nibbles of pleasure mixed with that gentle buzz of sensation that was something I felt only with Dontaine whenever my skin contacted him. With delicate finesse, Dontaine slowly released more of his power into the contact until there was a significant bite, tiny electric shocks dancing along my skin, mixing the biting pain of it with the pleasure of his tongue, teeth, and lips, running it over and over where Halcyon had left his invisible mark.

I gasped, quivered.

“My lady,” Dontaine said, his husky voice vibrating my ear. “You are alight.”

My skin was glowing, soft and pearlescent, the inner moonlight we carried inside us brought to the fore. Jarvis gazed at me with wonder and hungry yearning in his eyes. The expression in Kelly’s eyes, however, was not just wonder but fear. I felt the same reaction from others in the room, but had to shut it out and ignore it for now.

“Keep touching me, Dontaine,” I murmured as I knelt by Jarvis’s chair.

Dontaine’s finger lightly stroked over my sensitive neck as I placed my hand on Jarvis’s uninjured thigh. His body, the one part he could not voluntarily control, stirred, tenting the sheet covering his lap. I felt hunger in him, not just the normal physical desire of warrior for a Queen, but an even more visceral one of all the drained and depleted cells in his body thirsting for the illuminated light in my hand resting against his skin. So close and yet unable to pass across the barrier of his own unlit skin. It was partly from his weakened state and partly because, as I had explained, we glowed only in pleasure. Just resting my hand on his leg was apparently not eliciting enough pleasure.

I lifted my other hand to Jarvis’s face. Felt him shiver beneath my touch as I leaned forward and kissed him with warm sensuality. He liked it, but not enough to glow. There was too much learned fear and intimidation of who and what I was—Queen—to relax into the desire. More drastic measures, like a hand job, were looking more and more eminent. But I really wanted to avoid that if I could. Not the greatest first impression to make here.

My glance shifted to Kelly, standing beside us. A stormy expression was in her young, street-hardened eyes. She hadn’t liked me kissing Jarvis, not at all. Made me wonder if the nature of their relationship was less platonic, on her part, at least, than what I had presumed.

I drew back but still kept my hand on his thigh. “Kelly, maybe you should try. Kiss him. Try to bring out Jarvis’s light.”

Jarvis jerked beneath my hand. “No, milady, please. It’s not like that between us. She’s my friend—a child.”

“Hush, Jarvis,” I admonished, squeezing his thigh. “Kelly’s hands are bandaged. She can’t touch you any other way. I will not force her, if she does not wish to, but if she is willing, you must let her try.”

“The child,” said eighteen-year-old Kelly, “is willing.”

“Kelly—”

“Shut up, Jarvis,” she said, moving in front of him. “Close your eyes and think of England or something.”

He made a rough sound of laughter that stopped abruptly when Kelly leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. It began as a chaste and gentle kiss, then slowly deepened, became more heated. His eyes closed, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking of England.

Light gathered slowly on Jarvis’s skin like creeping dawn, just the faintest spark, but that was all I needed. The barrier between us dropped and my light rushed into him. And not just my light but my power. I thrust it into him. Thrust it the same way I had learned to push power out of my hand in a concentrated blast of energy. Healing power was different, more natural, but Jarvis’s body was nearly depleted; it hungered for what I had to give him.

A wash of power, of energy, of shared light blasted out from me to him. A moment of dazzling brightness that drew cries, and then the light dimmed and was gone from my skin, but lingered still on his in a soft afterglow that slowly faded into his perfect, unmarred, unblemished skin.

His wounds were completely healed, the full thickness of his epithelium fully restored.

I stood so that I could see his back, and found it as perfect as the rest of him.

A shocked roomful of faces stared back at me; more than one mouth was agape.

“He’s healed,” Kelly whispered. And then a pandemonium of sound and voices—exclamations, questions, demands—broke out.