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They sat in silence as she finished her toast.
I didn’t tell Tristan yet.
Lila forked a few pieces of fruit. “Good. Tristan and I aren’t friends. From now on, keep everything about me private, will you?”
He’s not mad that you tranqed him.
“I wouldn’t care if he was. We should get going.” She shoved her plate away, the pain in her side dull and achy.
Dixon retrieved a wheelchair from the corner of the room. He scooted it next to the bed and helped her into it, eyes wide as she hissed at each stroke of fire and every dull ache. He arranged the purple blanket around her legs once she had settled.
“Thanks, Dixon. For saving my life, I mean.”
He kissed her on the cheek, then wheeled her from the door, her IV bag towering over her head.
Connell rounded the corner. “Thank the gods, you’re awake. Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me? What were you thinking, charging a man with a gun?”
“I thought he’d murdered Camille. I couldn’t let him get away.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
“If you can call it that.”
“Well, stick to fruit and toast for a while, like your doctor told you. You’re lucky to be alive. Mòr told me you weren’t shot in most of her visions.”
“So not the best outcome?”
“Still one of the better ones, actually. She’s spent the last few weeks watching the compound fall to smoke and fire and ash. She’s watched friends die.”
“She’s watched you die?”
“She’s watched everyone die. Bringing in your doctor was just another precaution, but it shouldn’t have been needed. I should have questioned Camille in the cabin.”
“You did the best you could with the orders you were given. We all did.”
Boots shuffled behind them. The oracle rounded the corner. She seemed lost inside her baggy black sweater, but not so lost that she hadn’t heard their conversation. “Yesterday’s events were but a prelude to the future. Things would have become much worse if you and Dixon had not survived the day.”
“Worse for whom?”
“Worse for all of us. When you and Connell made your plans yesterday morning, I didn’t need the gods to know something might go wrong. I didn’t need Kenna to tell me how you’d feel about seeing Dr. McCrae.”
“So you called Helen.”
“I like to cover all my bases when death smiles upon my friends.”
Lila said nothing at the word “friend.” Perhaps Dixon had been right. “People died anyway.”
“People often do. Far less died yesterday than could have, Lila. We will mourn Nico and Delilah, but at least most of us are still here to mourn. I call yesterday a win. You should, too.”
“Will you give Camille the serum today?”
The oracle shook her head. “Dr. McCrae says that she’s not strong enough yet, not for several more weeks. Olivier is, though, so we’ll confirm everything she has to say with him and give her the serum when she’s well. It’s fortunate he wasn’t shot in the chase.”
“It’s not fortunate. I took a bullet so we’d get answers.”
“It’s fortunate that you?
??re so dedicated.”
