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“Once in a while, but they’re never like this. And there was something else I wanted to mention…” He pushed back Paxton’s hair so the doctor could see his face better. “Dark lines appeared under his eyes. You can kind of see them still.” He traced Pax’s left cheekbone with the tip of his index finger.

“Huh,” the doctor said, squinting. “Okay.” He took more notes before setting the clipboard on the counter and inserting the earpieces of his stethoscope. “I’m going to have a listen to your heart, okay?” he said to Pax as he stood and rolled the stool aside. “And then I’m going to take a look at your eyes. It’s super easy—nothing to be afraid of.” He gestured to the examination table. “If you could have a seat up here, that’d be great.”

Roman ruffled Pax’s hair. “Go on. You’ll be fine.”

When Aimes was finished with listening to Pax’s pulse and shining a light in his eyes, he asked Roman a few more questions. “Is Paxton on any suppressants?” He clacked away on the computer in the corner.

Roman shifted his weight. “No.” It was a lie. But medical records showed that Pax wasn’t on any, and he had to keep it that way. If Donovan found out that Roman had put the kid on them years ago…

“His father doesn’t have him on any?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” Absolutely not. Don wanted his youngest son’s magic to manifest in its strongest form. He’d never weaken him like that. “Why do you ask? Could suppressants cause something like this?”

“It could,” he began. “I’ve seen similar incidents where, over time, a person’s magic will swell like a balloon, until eventually it just—” He mimed a balloon popping. “Pops. It can cause an intense panic attack, ruptured blood vessels, and even cardiac arrest, I suppose, if it’s bad enough.” He returned to typing.

“What would cause it, though? What would set it off?”

“The short answer is too much restraint. Suppressants are only so strong. In some cases, if a patient’s magic is too powerful, they’ll develop a tolerance for the drug, and their magic will break through that barrier by force. It’s why a lot of patients need to up their dosage as they age.”

Huh. “So, say hewason suppressants,” Roman mused. “Would you recommend he get off them, or upped the dosage?”

He hemmed and hawed. “It depends. Certain prescriptions have significant withdrawal symptoms, so that’s something to keep in mind. If he has a good support network andwantsto wean off the drugs, then yeah, I always recommend doing so and learning to control your magic instead. Trying to suppress it isn’t always best for people like us. Suppressants work better on, say, veneficae or half-blood folk. Full-blood hellsehers have a high resistance to them, so they’re not always the best option.”

“Okay,” Roman said, thinking. “So you’re not concerned? About what happened?” He gestured to where Pax sat on the examination table. Crepe paper crinkled as he swung his legs, sneakered feet thunking together.

“Not overly,” Aimes said on an exhale. “Like I said, it sounds like a few incidents I’ve seen in the past where a person’s magic breaks through that shield of suppressants and causes a very intense Surge. I wouldn’t dwell on it too much.” From the way he was talking, he seemed to have drawn the conclusion that Pax was on suppressants, even if Roman wasn’t willing to admit it. This wastheDonovan Slade’s kid—he likely knew that not everything was going to be on record.

“Thanks,” Roman said.

The doctor nodded. “Any time.” He was gathering his things when Roman remembered something.

“I almost forgot,” Roman said. The doctor paused. “Have you ever heard of machinery reacting to a hellseher’s magic?”

His forehead crinkled. “Could you elaborate?”

“I was driving when Pax had his…episode. The brakes failed, the windshield shattered, and we went off the road with the car smoking.”

This time, when the doctor glanced at Paxton, he looked as though he were viewing him in a different light. Seeing him clearly.

His aura—it felt…off.

Fearful.

Suddenly, his face went cold and stony. “I’ve never heard of that before,” he said tightly. He tucked his clipboard under his arm. “You gentlemen have a great rest of your afternoon.”

He swung open the door and left.

Roman blinked. “Okay, that was weird,” he muttered.

Paxton hopped off the examination table and came to stand at Roman’s side, Chance creeping out of his shadow to join. The pup let out a low whine and cocked his head to one side.

“Yeah,” Pax agreed. “Really weird.”

Shay satin the waiting room of Arbor Walk-In, the latest gossip magazine open in her lap.

They’d managed to find a decent clothing store not far from the motel. Since she’d had nothing to wear, Roman had gone without her and picked out some clothes. Jeans, hoodies, t-shirts, underwear, socks, sneakers. And thank gods he had. She had worn his shirt for as many hours as her forlorn heart could handle. It was bad enough that she was sleeping in the same room as the man, let alone wearing his clothes that smelled way too much like him.

As she flipped through the magazine, the TV droned in the background. The news was on, volume on low. She wasn’t paying attention to the bullshit the reporters were spewing about the incident in Yveswich, but when they switched to another topic, the magazine slipped out of her hands and slid across the floor.