Chapter 142

After several minutes, Officer Jenkins pulled up in front of another massive building. Then again, everything here was massive.

This one wasn’t as tall as the towers, but it spread wide, all glass and light and people moving in and out.

“Is this where your friends are?” I asked.

“No, this is where-”

“Oh, so you did kidnap me and you’re going to use me for sex stuff! Say goodbye to your pecker, asshole!” I snapped, gathering my mana.

“Calm down, Lilae,” he said quickly. “This is a hospital. They’re just going to make sure you’re healthy and not hurt.”

“Why wouldn’t I be healthy?” I demanded. “I already healed the scratches from the vines.”

“I promise you,” he said, turning in his seat to face me, “no one is going to hurt you. This is just routine. When we’re not sure if someone’s okay, we bring them here and have a doctor check them out.”

I reached for the door, but couldn’t figure out how to open it. I kicked it instead.

“Lilae, please - just give me a second.”

He got out, walked around, and opened my door.

The moment there was space, I jumped out.

“You said you were going to help me find Tansy,” I said, glaring up at him. “You lied.”

“I didn’t lie,” he said, holding his hands up slightly. “My friends are already looking for her.”

“How?” I shot back. “You didn’t use your fone.”

“I used the radio.” His voice stayed calm, patient - like he was explaining something obvious.

“Why do you have a radio if you have a fone? Don’t they do the same thing?”

He let out a small laugh. “Yes and no. A phone lets you talk to one person at a time. A radio lets you talk to a lot of people at once. I told dispatch to start looking for Tansy.”

“Who is this dispatch person?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Are they one of your ‘friends’ too?”

“Yes,” he said. “Dispatch is the person who coordinates all of us. They tell us where to go when there’s a problem, and we tell them what we find.”

I studied him for a long moment. “You better not be lying to me.”

“I’m not, Lilae,” he said. “Let’s just talk to the doctors. Let them make sure you’re okay. Then we’ll go find Tansy.”

I huffed. “Fine.”

* * *

Walnut Street hit them like a wall of culture shock.

Cars rushed past, horns blaring. An ambulance screamed by, lights strobing against glass and steel. A crowd pressed up against the crosswalk, waiting, shifting, impatient.

“What are those?” Mirri asked.

“Cars,” I said, sharper than I meant to.

I knew I should smooth it over. Smile. Pretend everything was fine. I’d spent years doing exactly that - polished, practiced, easy.

But everything in me was raw, flayed open. I didn’t have it in me to fake anything.

“What are those people doing?” she asked.

“Waiting for the light. Green means go. Red means stop. Use the crosswalks.”

“Is it always this loud?” Ashlara muttered.

“Yes.”

I caught Mirri giving Ashlara a look out of the corner of my eye. I clenched my jaw and kept walking.

“A little warning would’ve been nice, Tansy,” Mirri said, shifting the conversation.

Silence answered her.

The light changed. The crowd surged forward.

“You could’ve told us the Gallows was going to dig up the worst parts of what I think and shove them in my face,” she went on.

“I would’ve preferred to know I was walking into a fight,” Ashlara added.

Tansy mumbled something too quiet to catch.

I stopped in the middle of the street.

I was an idiot and that made me feel worse. They hadn’t said those things. I had.

I should’ve known. Should’ve recognized it for what it was.

I was still sloppy. Still screwing up.

A wave of dizziness rolled through me. Somewhere in the distance, someone leaned on their horn.

I stumbled forward.

Mirri yanked on my hand. “You’re in the middle of the street. Light’s red. Come on!”

I followed, my legs heavy, like they were made of lead.

“Hey,” she said, trying to catch my eye, to pull me down to her level. “What’s going on? This isn’t like you. Talk to me.”

I didn’t answer. I pushed off the sidewalk, slipping between two buildings into a narrow alley.

The others followed.

I braced myself against the wall, breathing hard, trying to steady the spin in my head. Trying to find something solid inside myself to hold onto.

“Talk to us,” Mirri said again, softer now. “Tell us what’s wrong.”

“We need to find Lilae,” I said. “I don’t know how she opened the portal. I don’t know how she survived getting here. But we need to get her out.”

“I did it.” Tansy’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“What?” The word came out sharp as my gaze snapped to her.

“I opened the portal,” she said. “I brought her here. She wanted to see your world, so I helped her.”

She wouldn’t look at anyone. Her shoulders curled inward, like she was trying to disappear. “I just wanted to help. To share it with her.”

Something in me snapped. “What the actual fuck, Tansy?” I shouted. “You brought her here? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

My voice echoed off the brick, too loud, too harsh. “It’s dangerous. She’s your sister. She’s part of the pack. And you’re going to get her killed.”

The words kept coming, faster, sharper. “I am so fucking angry with you right now. We protect the pack. Remember that? Or are you so far gone you don’t want to be part of it anymore?”

She flinched.

“Do you want out? Because if that’s what you want, then go. Who’s next? Vel? Clo? Are you gonna get them killed too?”

My chest heaved. “I’m done, Tansy. I’m done. I’m going to get Lilae back. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

I turned and walked away, my steps uneven as I staggered deeper into the alley.

At the corner, I drove my fist into the wall. Concrete cracked. It didn’t make me feel any better, so I hit the wall again. And again. Until my hands split open and blood ran down my knuckles.

An alarm sounded somewhere.

Footsteps approached behind me - slow, cautious.

“Just go away,” I said, my voice breaking as tears blurred my vision.

“You could have handled that better,” Vel said. There was something in her voice I wasn’t used to hearing. A tremor.

“Yeah?” I snapped. “How?”

I didn’t have to see her to know she flinched.

“I told you she needed direction,” Vel said. “Her Faith is unraveling. She’s fragmenting. If she doesn’t find something to hold onto soon… she’s going to shatter.”

The words hung there for a beat. “You will too,” she added quietly, “if you keep this up.”

“I’m fine,” I said automatically.

We both knew it wasn’t true.

“You’re fragmenting,” she said. “And at this rate, you’re going to die before we ever reach Lilae.”

* * *

The inside of the hospital smelled like burning metal and sharp herbs - except not quite either. It burned my nose. The ceilings stretched fifteen feet overhead, lined with glowing panels that cast a sickly, blue-white light over everything.

I immediately didn’t like this place.

Officer Jenkins wandered off to speak with a woman in blue, leaving me alone to take it all in. Chairs lined the walls - metal frames with bright blue cushions - packed tightly around the perimeter. Eleven people sat waiting. Some leaned into each other for comfort. Others sat alone, staring into nothing.

A boy a few years younger than me clutched a pair of crutches, his mother hovering close. A man sat by himself with a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his hand. A little girl - eight, maybe nine - coughed into her sleeve, her face flushed with fever while her mother watched helplessly. Another man hunched forward, clutching his stomach. The rest looked… fine. Or at least not like they were in distress.

I couldn’t understand it. Thren said this world could fix almost anything with their machines. So why were they just… sitting here? Waiting?

People in blue and pink clothes drifted around the room beyond, chatting at desks like there wasn’t a line of hurting people right in front of them. Like it didn’t matter. It made my stomach turn.

I walked over to the man with the bloody hand. “What happened?” I asked quietly.

He looked up - olive skin, dark hair, the kind of look you’d see in Iilvarion - annoyance and confusion tangled together on his face. “I cut myself.”

“Can I see? I can help.”

“Seriously, kid?”

“Yeah, seriously. How long have you been waiting?”

He checked his fone. “Forty-five minutes.”

“Forty-five minutes for something that’s already clotted?” I shook my head. “What is wrong with these people?”

“Right?” he said, louder now, glaring toward the desk.

“Let me see it. I’ll fix you up and get you home.”

He hesitated, then sighed and unwound the rag. The cut was deep - jagged, running from thumb to palm. Mostly clotted, but still seeping.

“Here. You won’t feel a thing.” I gathered my mana and took his hand. He tried to pull away, but I held firm. A faint green glow flickered between my fingers, nearly swallowed by the harsh overhead lights, as his flesh knit itself back together.

When I let go, he jerked his hand back. “What the fuck, you crazy bitch?”

“Crazy bitch?” I shot back. “I fixed your hand. Be grateful, you slack-tackled, mold-bitten oaf.” I pointed toward the door. “Now get out.”

He stared at his palm - no wound, no scar - turning it over, pressing at it like he expected the pain to come back. His eyes flicked between me and his hand. “How did you do that?”

“Magic,” I called over my shoulder as I walked away.

He left the room in a daze.

I dropped into the chair beside the man clutching his stomach. “Where does it hurt?”

He rolled his eyes.

“Do you want help or not?”

He clenched his teeth as another wave of pain hit.

“How long have you been here?”

“Just go away, kid.”

“Okay.” I stood and moved on.

The boy with the crutches caught my eye. His ankle was swollen, angry and red beneath the wrapping.

“That looks bad,” I said. “What happened?”

“I twisted it playing soccer.”

“What’s soccer?” I asked

“You don’t know what soccer is?”

“Nope. Does it involve socks?”

He laughed. “No. You kick a ball into a net.”

I knelt down.

“Don’t touch it,” his mother snapped.

“I need to touch it to see if it’s broken,” I told her.

“You’re not a doctor.”

“True. How long have you been here?”

She glared.

“Like an hour,” the boy said.

I shook my head. “Can I check it?”

“It hurts,” he said.

“I know. I’ll be careful.”

“Don’t touch him,” she snapped. “I’m calling security.” She marched off toward the desk.

The boy looked between us, then back at me. “…Okay. Just be gentle.”

I nodded, took his ankle in my hands, and carefully probed.

He hissed.

“Almost done.”

My magic pushed against his body and… it resisted. Not like it should. Vaer had told me about this - how thren’s body didn’t have flowlines when he first came to our world. Mana didn’t move through him the way it should.

This felt the same.

With the others, my magic could fix the superficial damage. It was outside the body and I could just seal it up. But this was deeper. I had to get through the skin and into his body.

I pushed harder. Mana **** its way in, slow and stubborn. I felt the fractures - one along the knucklebone, another low on the calf bone. The second wasn’t too bad, but the first… that one was painful and would take time to heal if left alone.

I poured a lot more mana into it, reinforcing the bone, sealing the cracks.

“Hot, hot, hot,” he gasped.

“Lilae!” A hand clamped down on my shoulder.

I stood and turned, glaring. “What?”

“This is a hospital,” Officer Jenkins said sharply. “You don’t hurt people, and you don’t pester them.”

“Tell the first to your doctors and the second to yourself,” I shot back. I glanced at the boy. “Be more careful next time. That was a bad break.”

Jenkins guided me away, firm hand still on my shoulder.

“Mom!” the boy called. “It doesn’t hurt anymore! She fixed it!”

“She didn’t fix it, Matthew. Just wait for the doctors.”

“But it’s not swollen! I can walk!” He jumped to his feet, testing it, then bouncing in place.

“Thank you!” he called after me.

Officer Jenkins paused, glancing back at the boy - then at me - before steering me into one of the blue chairs and pressing me down into it.

Matthew tried to follow, but his mother **** him back into his seat.

Jenkins sat beside me, arms crossed, though he kept sneaking looks at me from the corner of his eye.

I leaned back, smirking. “My magic can heal cuts and broken bones,” I said. “It can also burn your pecker off.” I tilted my head toward him. “Watch yourself.”