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"By Red?" she asked, gaze slipping toward the bed.
"No."
"Oh," she said, pressing her lips together. "Um, Ace can be a bit..."
"Of an asshole," I supplied.
"Yeah, that," Lenore said, sharing a knowing smile with me. "But he did ask me to bring you clothes. And a blanket. I also set out a toothbrush for you in the bathroom. I will be making some breakfast soon. The men don't usually eat with me."
"Why not?"
"Something about how I eat twigs and leaves," she said, rolling her eyes. "I don't eat flesh," she added.
"Oh, okay. Well, that's fine. I don't need meat," I agreed, feeling the gnawing of my stomach. I would eat whatever I could get.
"I don't think I'm allowed to bring you out of the room, but I will bring you some when I finish making it. And then maybe Lycus can come in here and bring you to the bathroom and such," she said, giving me a small smile before handing me the pile of clothes and blankets, and heading out.
She'd brought me a floor-length canary yellow dress and a sweater that I quickly slipped on, feeling I needed the layers even if I was not exactly a dress-wearing sort of woman, finding the long skirts more problematic than pants since I was so short and they always dragged across the ground, getting filthy or trapped under my feet.
The rest of that day was relatively uneventful.
Lenore brought me a breakfast of oatmeal with fresh fruit and honey. I was maybe a bit of a Pops or Cinnamon Toast Crunch sort of girl, to be honest, but it was edible, and it proved to be the only meal I got until dinner, so I was glad I choked it down.
Lycus, who turned out to be Lenore's man, showed up sometime after to escort me to the bathroom, but let me close the door all the way for some privacy.
He, Aram, and some grumpy, angry-looking giant named Bael helped me temporarily move Red so we could get fresh sheets on the bed to help keep her wounds clean.
I gave Red her pain medicine and another dose of antibiotics. I checked her temperature and her wounds. I hummed to her to try to ease whatever hell she was going through on the inside.
Then, eventually, exhaustion pulling at my eyelids, I dragged myself back to the couch, curling up under the blanket Lenore had provided even though the house was too hot already. I just wanted the protection when I wasn't conscious.
Eventually, sleep claimed me.
It was a voice that woke me up some indeterminate time later.
Low, soothing.
The creaking hinge is oiled,
I have unbarred the backway,
But you tread not the trackway;
And shall the thing be spoiled?
I slow blinked in the mostly dark room, the only light coming from the low bulb in the nightstand lamp.
Ace was lounging there in a fold-up chair he must have brought in with him, a small book open in his lap, his gaze fixed on it as he recited the poem.
Far cockcrows echo shrill,
The shadows are abating,
And I am waiting, waiting;
But, O, you tarry still.
I'll admit, I had never really been a poetry fan. I mean, sure, I went through my Edgar Allen Poe phase like any teenaged girl who thought his doomed love poetry was the ultimate in romance, but aside from Annabel Lee and The Raven, I'd never really taken to verse. Not even when I'd dated a very sensitive guy in high school who dragged me to some run-down coffee house that hosted slam poetry readings in a back room.
I always found them hard to follow, especially the older poems with more archaic wording.
But, somehow, with the calm, confident, and gentle way Ace was reciting this one, it was oddly hypnotic.
"What is that?" I heard myself ask before I even realized I was going to ask.
Ace's head lifted, his cool blue gaze on me for a long moment before answering. "Thomas Hardy."
"What's the poem?" I asked, suddenly wanting to know how it started.
"I say I'll Seek Her," he supplied.
"It's pretty," I decided, feeling lame for not having anything else to say about it.
"Hardy was a romantic," he said, and even though I wasn't sure I fully understood his meaning, it sounded like he was agreeing with me to an extent, which made me feel a little less silly.
"It's good to talk to them," I supplied, folding up to a seated position, pulling the blanket up to my shoulders. "When patients seem lost in their own heads," I clarified. "It's good to talk to them. A lot of people who wake up even from comas say they could hear things, but just couldn't wake up. Does she like poetry?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Isn't she your friend?"
"Yeah."
"You never asked?"
"Do your friends ask if you like dead poets?" he shot back.
It was probably not a good idea to let him know that I didn't really have any friends. Any family. Any significant other. Anyone who would notice I was missing, would look for me.
