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The doctor had turned fro at Doyle&039;s chart "We&039;ve treated the burns He should be i"
"But he&039;s not," the nurse said
The doctor snapped at her "I can see that"
The unifor that soic to kill Captain Doyle?"
"I don&039;t know," the doctor said, "and I don&039;t say that often"
"I know," I said
They all turned towardIf it had been h to break the spell and reveal us, but Sholto&039;s poas stouter stuff
"Did you hear that, Doctor?" the nurse asked
"I&039;m not sure"
"I heard it," the cop said
"I can save him," I said
"Who&039;s there?" the cop asked, and he was standing, with his hand going for his gun
"I am Princess Meredith NicEssus, and I have couard"
"Show yourself," the cop said
Sholto did two things: he made his tentacles back into their lifelike tattoo, and he dropped the glamour To the humans in the rooun, then stopped in mid-motion He blinked and shook his head, as if to clear his vision
"So beautiful," the nurse said, and she looked at us onderhtened He backed away froainst him He clutched Doyle&039;s chart as if it were a shield
I tried to think hoeflowers, covered in the ine I would never be able to see what they saw
We moved toward the bed, and the policeain But the gun eased toward the floor once led voice
"Take the needles and tubes out of Doyle You&039;re usinghied to ask
"He is a creature of faerie, and there is no mortal blood in him to help ease him around such modern wonders" I touched Doyle&039;s arm, and his skin was cool to the touch "We must hurry, Doctor, and remove him from this artificial place, or he will die" I reached for the IV in Doyle&039;s arm "Help me"
The doctor looked atone But the nurse moved to help me "What do you want me to do?" she asked
"Disconnect him from all of it We need to take him back to faerie with us"
"I can&039;t let you take an injuredthe ring of authority it had started with, as if now that he had a concrete fact, he felt better Sick people didn&039;t get taken from the hospital; it was a rule
I looked at the policeman "Can you please help the nurse free Captain Doyle of these un, and moved to the other side of the bed to help
"You&039;re a cop," the doctor said "You&039;re not qualified to disconnect hi"
The cop looked at the doctor "You just said that he wasn&039;t i, and that you didn&039;t knohy Look at theic all over the place If the captain is used to living like that, then what is all the h You can&039;t just walk in here and takeat us
"He is the captain of uard, my lover, and the father ofto endanger hi the doctor The nurse directed the cop, and between the two of the in the bed free of it all
Noe could touch hiic knew that he needed to be free of all that was hurting him before we could heal hi His body reacted as if we had shocked hiasp He reacted to pain a second later, but he looked at me He saw me
He smiled, and whispered, "My Merry"
I smiled back and felt the bite of happy tears "Yes," I said "Yes, I am"
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&039;t do his job I liked hier" He looked at Sholto and me on the other side of the bed "What did you do to hiic of faerie," I said
"Would it work on humans?" he asked
I shook my head, and the crown of roses andmore comfortably "Your medicine would have helped a human with the same injuries"
"Did your crown just nored the question, because the sidhe are not allowed to lie, but the truth would not help her She was already staring at us like ere a The look on her face and to a lesser extent the policeman&039;s reminded reed 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&039;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&039;t argue; we simply moved to the other side of the bed The doctor moved back from us as if he didn&039;t want us to touch hi since the Goddess had blessed us to this degree that I wasn&039;t certain ould happen to a hu his ars, though I didn&039;t have to bend nearly as far It took soed race, but we picked Doyle up He seemed to fill our arms as if he were meant to be there, orhim As if he filled my arms, filled my body and my heart How could I have left hi over hiuards? That policeman shouldn&039;t have been on his own
"Meredith," Sholto said, "you are thinking too hard, and we et hi where the other guards are Someone should have stayed with him"
The policeman answered "They ith Rhys, and the one who&039;s called Falen, no, Galen They took the body of your - " and he looked hesitant, as if he&039;d already said too randmother," 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 ot their other duties"
I hugged Doyle to ainst Sholto&039;s body "I&039;d heard that a faerie radhe could et themselves, but I didn&039;t knohat it entle, or even joyous This one was for grief, and taking your grand and celebration, they ht have carried the entire hospital with therief," 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 beco to be near their obsession It can happen about faerie in general, but we didn&039;t have glorious underground places to give the mortals now So that wasn&039;t such a problem, but Sholto&039;s face was as fair as any in faerie, and, croith the bloo herbs, in their haze of colored blosso 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&039;t just Doyle&039;s health ere attending to We needed to get away from the humans before they beca to use our bound hands to steady Doyle&039;s body in our ar the bareness of his body The thorns must have pierced his body because hein our ar," the nurse said She was staring at the floor Blood drops had for Doyle with the roses that had ht for later; we needed to get back to faerie I suddenly felt like Cinderella hearing the clock begin to strike arden and the bed now"
Sholto didn&039;t argue, only et 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&039;d had no control over what the wild ht It seeo that I&039;d woken in the maternity ward
The doctor&039;s call to us had asps It was too late to hide now
"Find us another patient who is betwixt and between," I said
He led us to a patient as 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 hilance with Sholto I started to say no, but one of the white roses fell fro and terribly alive The woain "Thank you," she said
"Take us home," I whispered to Sholto He led us around the bed, and the next ate of bone We were back, and we had saved Mistral and Doyle, but the woman&039;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 huate We had to turn sideways to ease through with Doyle in our ar it The e was clear: none but ere allowed inside
I was suddenly tired, very tired We laid Doyle beside the still-sleeping Mistral We took off Doyle&039;s hospital gown, and crawled up on the bed Our hands were still bound tightly, so it ard, but we seemed to know that we needed to be on either side of the two men I expected to be unable to sleep with the thorns still in our hands and the bulky crown on my head, but sleep came over me in a wave I had ahis blooainst Doyle&039;s body, and sleep washed over