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“Can I punch someone if I’m wearing this?”
The Healer frowned. “What kind of question is that?”
“The wrong one, apparently.” He sighed, lowering his hand to rest it in his lap. “How long until it’s fully healed?”
“For a hellseher? I’d say two weeks. Three, worst case scenario.” She eyed him. “If you punch someone, it’ll definitely take three. Maybe four.”
He grunted in irritation.
“I’m assuming this is a problem because you’re a Darkslayer?”
Darien didn’t say anything.
“Use your left as often as possible. Try not to bend your fingers more than you need to. The worse breaks are lower down, in this area—” She demonstrated on her own hand. That explained why she’d opted for a glove that didn’t cover his fingers. “If you need to use a firearm, a basic handgun is your best option. A knife works too. Anything that requires two hands is going to be a challenge for you until the fractures are fully healed.” That sucked.
“I got one more question,” he said. “Can you do anything for a patient who suffers from amnesia?”
She blinked at the turn in conversation. “Full or partial?”
“Partial.”
She grimaced. “Ooh, that’s a tough one. Full is easier than partial because we know all memories are missing, so we can fill them in fairly quickly with little risk. If it’s partial, the process can take longer.”
“How long?”
“Weeks, at best. Worst-case scenario would be months, and in rare cases, years. There are other risks involved, too, such as overwriting memories that are perfectly fine and intact. It can cause serious damage to the patient’s brain—can kind of scramble it in a sense. So we need to be very careful with partial cases.” She studied him. “Who has amnesia?”
“My girlfriend.” He got to his feet. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” As he made for the door, she called, “And good luck.”
Darien didn’t know if she was talking about his hand, the amnesia, or the conversation they’d had about proposing. He didn’t bother asking her to clarify.
Roman desperately wanted to go after Shay, but he also knew she wanted space. She’d made that very obvious the minute she’d used illusion to stop him from following her.
About an hour had passed since then—since Shay had bolted, and Darien and Tanner had left for the hospital. Roman and Kylar stood in the kitchen with Dominic and Blue, the former explaining the origins of his blue-haired friend. How the Devils’ paths had wound up crossing with Blue’s, where she’d come from, how her magic worked. She was known as a Blue Elemental—someone who possessed the magic of the Mist. Someone who Max, Lacey, and Tanner had picked up one night after finding her standing in the middle of the road with a tracking device in her arm. A device she’d cut out.
This shit explained so much about the Facility. About what little Roman and Shay had learned from Doctor Rowe before he’d been gutted by that monster from Spirit Terra.
About what happened to Anna Cousens.
“I believe you, too, are an Elemental,” Arthur said to Roman. “Kylar as well.” The old man sat at the island, sipping a cup of black tea. Aspen and Malakai were in here too, sifting through the cupboards and fridge and bickering about whether to cook something for dinner or order takeout. It was getting to be that time already.
And if Shay didn’t come back, she’d be spending tonight alone.
Roman blinked. Forced himself to breathe. “What do you mean?” he asked Arthur. “How can we be Elementals when we weren’t…modified?” Blue’d had her magic honed in the Facility—the same way as the other Elementals, all of them named after the color of their magic—their auras.
“You can bend shadows, yes?” Arthur asked, eyes flicking between Roman and Ky.
“Yeah, but we can’t summon them out of nothing,” Roman said. Not like Blue could summon water—literally out of thin air. Roman had seen it with his own eyes only a few minutes ago—watched her demonstrate, a snake of water twirling up her wrist and threading through her fingers, her eyes glowing the brightest blue. There were a few hellsehers who could bend the elements the way Roman and the other Shadowmasters could bend shadows, but they’d never been given a specific title before—never been called Elementals.
“I believe you are an Elemental, but your powers are on a slightly smaller scale,” Arthur said. “And I believe Blue was just like you two, once, except with the ability to bend water instead of shadow.” Bend water, but not summon it.
“He’s probably right,” Dominic offered. “Blue didn’t spend her whole life in the Facility, but she began going there as a child—back when she was too young to understand what was happening or have the ability to say no. Long story short, she wound up living there when she was in her teens, and the people who ran the Facility worked on her mind over the course of many years. Making her forget everything. Even her own name.” He scowled in disgust.
“Shit.” Roman’s eyes flicked to Blue. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been remembering, slowly,” she replied, every word coated in an accent Roman now knew was Ilevyn. “I remember that my parents were murdered the last time they brought me there, when I was a teenager. Killing them was how the people in the Facility were able to keep me.” She swallowed, a haunted look in her eyes. “And stop…having to pay them.” Selling your child—deplorable. Apparently, the same damn thing had happened to Max’s sister, Maya Reacher. Sold by her mother when the wrong people had discovered she had fire magic. People who wanted to use her for their own gain, essentially torturing her in the Facility.
