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Willow’s face appeared above her, eyes red-lined, her hair unkempt and messy from sleep. Seeing Fey awake, her eyes widened.

“She’s awake!” Willow shouted, not taking her eyes from Fey’s face. “Guys? Guys, come here, she’s awake!”

Fey made another pained sound, and Willow winced.

“Don’t try to talk,” she insisted. “Your throat was damaged from the fire. You could hurt yourself.”

Fire? Fey’s head was spinning. Memories were jumbled together, hazy and indistinct. Then she remembered the ambush, the Shifter, the desperate leap to the water below…

She opened her mouth again, but Willow just shook her head frantically.

“Don’t talk!” she insisted. “You’re going to hurt yourself. You have to be still while your body heals, you’re?—”

A door opened somewhere in the room, and suddenly they were all there. Her sisters. Joy and Lilith joined Willow above her, staring down at her.

“You’re alive,” Lilith whispered in astonishment.

“Oh, thank the Goddess,” Joy sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

I am alive, Fey realized.

And then she closed her eyes and tumbled back into the void of unconsciousness.

Fey spent the next few days slipping in and out of sleep. When she was awake, her sisters helped her eat, giving her healing elixirs left by the Med Witch who had attended her before she woke. They soothed the constant ache in her throat, but still, she couldn’t speak in those first few days.

Bit by bit, she returned to her body. She’d been hurt badly. Whether from the fight or the fall, they weren’t sure. She’d been found near death, her body broken and burned, washed up on the shore of the river. She’d lost her mask in the water, but the civilian who’d found her had recognized her uniform, recognized the mark on her forearm: a member of the Queen’s Blades, hurt and in need of aid.

She’d been rushed to a Med Witch, barely alive, and once her sisters had been contacted, they’d brought her here, to one of their safe houses in the city.

“What happened to you, sister?” Joy asked her the second time Fey had woken.

But Fey had just shaken her head. Unable to talk, unable to explain anything. And Joy hadn’t asked again.

It was two weeks before Fey could get out of bed. Even with the best Med Witches in the city, even with the constant care of her sisters and the sigils covering her skin that promised strength and fast healing. Someone had repaired her healing sigil, but even with its power, two and a half weeks passed before she could speak without pain.

“It was an elixir,” were the first words Fey spoke, the most important words, the ones that had been burning in her mind for weeks while her body rebuilt itself. Her voice was strained, the pitch deeper and huskier than usual. “In the warehouse. Not devil dust. An elixir.”

Joy’s eyebrows rose in shock, but Lilith’s face darkened.

“You’re still going after this?” Lilith asked at the same time Joy breathlessly said, “What do you mean, an elixir? Fey, who attacked you?”

Fey shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered, and though the words hurt her throat, the pain of not knowing who their enemy was hurt more. “A Shifter? I didn’t recognize them. Panther, I think. Something big, with claws.”

Sharp, deadly claws and her arms and shoulders would carry the scars to prove it.

Lilith stood from the bed. “No,” she snapped. “No, Fey, this is enough. You can’t do this anymore. You can’t keep doing this to us.”

Joy turned toward her, frowning. “Sister,” she said in a soft, consoling voice.

Face twisted in rage, Lilith spun toward her. “No! Don’t you dare, Joy. I’m not going to sit back and be quiet about this anymore.” Turning her fury on Fey, she shouted. “You could have died!”

The words filled the air between them, and Fey blinked, shocked at the anger, the emotions in Lilith’s voice.

While she spoke, Lilith’s hands shook. Her face was cracking, breaking with an emotion too powerful for words. Under that anger, that fury… pain. Fear. “You could have died,” she whispered, voice breaking. Her cheeks glistened, and Fey realized with shock that her sister was crying.

She’d never seen Lilith cry before. Not once.

Fey’s hand rose to touch her face, and she realized she was crying, too.