Page 31 of Monsters and Mocha

“I don’t need to go to the hospital. It’s just a knock on the head.” She mentally ran through her list of symptoms. “Maybe a concussion. I’ll be fine.”

“Just a knock on the head?” Henry looked at her in disbelief. “There was enough blood on that floor that I was certain for a moment that you were dead.”

She shrugged. “Head wounds bleed a lot. It tends to look a lot scarier than it actually is.”

Fitz silently handed her a glass of water and she took a long, slow sip. She avoided meeting his eyes, still unsure where things stood between them after their argument at the hospital.

Henry wasn’t done. “How could you know how scary it was? You were unconscious for all of it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just my years of practice in the medical field.” Darby drawled as she touched her head again and tried to reach for her magic, but was rewarded with a hundred tiny needles in her temples instead. She sucked in a sharp breath at the pain.

“What is it?” Henry was on his knees by her bed in an instant.

She shoved him away. “Nothing. I was just trying to see if I could use magic to speed up this process, but it looks like it’s just going to be sleep for now.”

“Are you sure?”

The worry evident in his eyes and face was enough to soften her irritation.

He was scared. Is scared. And he wouldn’t be this concerned if he didn’t care about me so much.

“I’m sure, Henry. I just need some sleep and a coffee in the morning, and I’ll be right as rain.” She tried to summon a reassuring smile.

“Did you see who it was?”

Fitz’s quiet voice caught her by surprise. She looked up to where he stood, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. Their eyes met, and the haunted guilt in his expression nearly broke her.

What happened?

She tore her gaze away and blinked, trying to focus her mind on all the details she could recall. “I didn’t. When I came home, the workshop was in shambles, like a tornado had blown through. I remember being upset, then Raven started screeching, and then the next thing I remember is waking up here.” She looked around her small apartment, struck by a sudden thought. “Did the two of you really carry me all the way up here?”

“I don’t know whether to be hurt by your lack of faith in me or touched that you think you’re enough of a burden to be concerned about.” Fitz raised a single brow in challenge.

She breathed an inward sigh of relief at the return of his sense of humor.

Maybe everything will be okay between us again.

“You should know that your captain here is incredibly bossy in a crisis.” Henry was apparently now sufficiently convinced she wasn’t standing at death’s door, and he dropped into a large, cushioned chair.

Fitz shrugged unapologetically at him, apparently accepting both the charge and the claim of being hers. “I’ve spent nearly twenty years giving orders. It’s become second-nature now.”

“Good. Maybe Darby will actually listen to someone for once.”

“You and I both know that’s unlikely. Though, maybe if you held her coffee for ransom…”

“Would the two of you please stop conspiring against me?” A wave of exhaustion hit her, and she slowly eased herself onto her pillow. “Or at the very least, take your conspiring elsewhere.”

There was a rustling of feathers, and Raven landed on one of the bedposts at the foot of her bed. “Good Raven. Good night.”

She blinked. “Where did he come from?”

“He’s been in here the whole time,” Fitz answered. “He was apparently locked out of the workshop when your assailant left. He was the one who warned us that there was something wrong.”

Darby smiled, which turned into a yawn. “Good Raven.”

He bobbed his head. “Good Raven.”

Henry stood. “We’ll let you get some sleep.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe it was Deus who hit you on the head because he knew it would take a concussion to get you to actually sleep for once.”