"
His eyes lost focus, then fluttered closed. The doctor checked his pulse from his side of the bed. He was afraid of us, but not so afraid that he wouldn't do his job. I liked him better for that.
"His pulse is stronger." He looked at Sholto and me on the other side of the bed. "What did you do to him?"
"We shared some of the magic of faerie," I said.
"Would it work on humans?" he asked.
I shook my head, and the crown of roses and mistletoe moved in my hair, like some serpentine pet settling more comfortably. "Your medicine would have helped a human with the same injuries."
"Did your crown just move?" the nurse asked.
I ignored the question, because the sidhe are not allowed to lie, but the truth would not help her. She was already staring at us like we were amazing. The look on her face and to a lesser extent the policeman's reminded me why President Thomas Jefferson had made certain that we agreed to never be worshipped as deities on American soil. Neither of us wanted to be worshipped, Sholto and I, but how do you keep that look off someone's face when you stand before them crowned by the Goddess herself?
I expected the roses that bound our hands to uncurl so we could pick Doyle up, but they seemed perfectly happy where they were.
"Let us pick him up from the other side of the bed," Sholto said. "That way you will be carrying his legs, which are lighter."
I didn't argue; we simply moved to the other side of the bed. The doctor moved back from us as if he didn't want us to touch him. I couldn't really blame him. It had been so long since the Goddess had blessed us to this degree that I wasn't certain what would happen to a human who touched us in this moment.
Sholto bent over, putting his arms under Doyle's shoulders. I did the same at his legs, though I didn't have to bend nearly as far. It took some maneuvering, like an arm version of a three-legged race, but we picked Doyle up. He seemed to fill our arms as if he were meant to be there, or maybe that was just how I felt about touching him. As if he filled my arms, filled my body and my heart. How could I have left him to human medicine without another guard watching over him?
Wherewerethe other guards? That policeman shouldn't have been on his own.
"Meredith," Sholto said, "you are thinking too hard, and we must move together to get him home."
I nodded. "Sorry, I was just wondering where the other guards are. Someone should have stayed with him."
The policeman answered. "They went with Rhys, and the one who's called Falen, no, Galen. They took the body of your — " and he looked hesitant, as if he'd already said too much.
"My grandmother," I finished for him.
"There were horses with them," the cop said. "Horses in the hospital, and no one cared."
"They were shining and white," the nurse said. "So beautiful."
"Every guard who they passed seemed to have a horse, and they rode out of the hospital," the cop said.
"The magic took them," Sholto said, "and they forgot their other duties."
I hugged Doyle to me, and gazed at his face cuddled against Sholto's body. "I'd heard that a faerie radhe could make the sidhe forget themselves, but I didn't know what it meant."
"It is a type of wild hunt, Meredith, except it is gentle, or even joyous. This one was for grief, and taking your grandmother home, but if it had been one of singing and celebration, they might have carried the entire hospital with them."
"They were too solemn in their grief," the nurse said.
"Yes," Sholto said, "and good for your sakes."
I looked at the nurse, gazing up at Sholto. She looked damn near elfstruck, a term for when mortals become so enamored of one of us that they will do anything to be near their obsession. It can happen about faerie in general, but we didn't have glorious underground places to give the mortals now. So that wasn't such a problem, but Sholto's face was as fair as any in faerie, and, crowned with the blooming herbs, in their haze of colored blossoms, he was like something out of the old fairy stories. I supposed we both were.
"We need to go, Sholto."
He nodded, as if he knew that it wasn't just Doyle's health we were attending to. We needed to get away from the humans before they became any more bemused by us.
We started for the door, having to use our bound hands to steady Doyle's body in our arms. The thin gown moved, and we were suddenly touching the bareness of his body. The thorns must have pierced his body because he made a small sound, moving in our arms like a child disturbed by a dream.
"You're bleeding," the nurse said. She was staring at the floor. Blood drops had formed a pattern beneath us. What was it about touching Doyle with the roses that had made her see the blood? I left the thought for later; we needed to get back to faerie. I suddenly felt like Cinderella hearing the clock begin to strike midnight.
"We must get back to the garden and the bed now."
Sholto didn't argue, only moved us toward the door. He asked the policeman to get the door for us, and he did without complaint.
The doctor called from the open door, "You melted the walls in the room you were in, Princess Meredith."
Did I say I was sorry? I was, but I'd had no control over what the wild magic did to the room I'd woken in earlier this night. It seemed like days ago that I'd woken in the maternity ward.
The doctor's call to us had made others turn. We walked through a world of stares and gasps. It was too late to hide now.
"Find us another patient who is betwixt and between," I said.
He led us to a patient who was housed in an oxygen tent. A woman beside the bed looked up at us with a tearstained face. "Are you angels?"
"Not exactly," I said.
"Please, can you help him?"
I exchanged a glance with Sholto. I started to say no, but one of the white roses fell from my crown onto the bed. It lay there, shining and terribly alive. The woman took the rose in her shaking hands. She started to cry again. "Thank you," she said.
"Take us home," I whispered to Sholto. He led us around the bed, and the next moment we were back in the edge of the garden, outside the gate of bone. We were back, and we had saved Mistral and Doyle, but the woman's face haunted me. Why had the rose fallen onto her bed, and why had it seemed to make her feel better? Why had she thanked us?
It was the humpbacked doctor, Henry, who opened the bone gate. We had to turn sideways to ease through with Doyle in our arms. The gate closed behind us without Henry touching it. The message was clear: none but we were allowed inside.
I was suddenly tired, very tired. We laid Doyle beside the still-sleeping Mistral.